Episode 113: Rainbow Crops: Giacomo Bastianelli on Treating Every Investor as "One Shot," Selling Without Selling, and Fundraising as a Probability Matrix

In this episode, I welcome back Giacomo Bastianelli, Co-Founder & CEO of Rainbow Crops — and one of the first founders to return to the podcast, because eighteen months ago we were talking about his pre-seed, and today he's just closed a €9.7M seed round plus a $7M grant from the Gates Foundation. Rainbow Crops is a VIB spin-off out of Ghent developing next-generation crop genetics, combining precision breeding, multiplex genome editing, and AI to tackle the complex, multi-gene traits — yield, stress resilience — that a single-gene approach can't touch. Giacomo walks us through how he ran the raise like a disciplined operator: preparing the seed materials before the pre-seed even closed, building a manually curated 60-name investor funnel in Trello, and treating every first interaction as a single shot he couldn't waste. He explains why his lead investor, Turin-based LIFTT, was nowhere on that list — and why doing the work is exactly what opens you up to that kind of serendipity. Along the way we get into a genuinely different take on persuasion for deep tech: honesty as a sales strategy, presenting risk as a probability matrix, and why the best salespeople never actually sell.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear why Giacomo built his own pitch deck instead of hiring an agency (and when a "polisher" makes sense), how he structured a results deck that lands for both non-technical investors and PhD experts, why you should pitch your tier-two and tier-three investors first, how he used a probabilistic model to talk investors through regulatory and patent risk, and the "tip of the iceberg" principle behind a deck that could survive real due diligence.

Key Facts: Rainbow Crops

• Giacomo Bastianelli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giacomob
• Website: rainbowcrops.com
• Headquarters: Ghent, Belgium
• Funding: €9.7M seed round led by LIFTT (with LIFTT EuroInvest), alongside AIF, PINC, VIB, Corteva (via Corteva Catalyst), and Maia Ventures — plus a separate $7M grant from the Gates Foundation for climate-resilient corn and sorghum.

Blurb

RAINBOW CROPS is built on a hard genetic truth: the traits that matter most in agriculture — yield, drought tolerance, climate resilience — are almost never controlled by a single gene. They emerge from networks of genes interacting at once, which is precisely why they've resisted decades of conventional breeding and single-edit biotech. Rainbow Crops attacks that complexity head-on with its Trait Foundry™ platform, pairing multiplex genome editing with AI and automated phenotyping to search enormous combinatorial spaces and engineer the multi-gene traits that older tools simply can't reach.

Episode 112: Michroma & We Are Palta: Ricky Cassini and Alan Valicenti on Treating the Raise Like a Sales Process, the 110-Slide Data Room, and Turning Complex Into Compelling

In this episode, I sit down with two Argentinians who have been building together for almost six years: Ricky Cassini, Co-Founder & CEO of Michroma, the precision-fermentation startup making natural food colors from fungi, and Alan Valicenti, Partner & Chief Growth Officer of We Are Palta, the design-and-marketing agency built for science-driven deep-tech companies. It is a rare, candid look at what it actually costs — in dollars, in time, and in discipline — to make a deep-tech company look as serious as its science. Ricky breaks down how Michroma rebuilt its entire data room into roughly 110 professionally designed slides — carved into a teaser deck plus dedicated decks for market opportunity, the platform, the ingredients, regulatory, IP, team and advisory board, and techno-economics/manufacturing — and how that data room helped oversubscribe a $5M target into a $6.4M seed that investors said "looked like a Series B." Alan pulls back the curtain on how We Are Palta scopes and prices the work, why "subtracting" is the highest-value skill in an age of AI slop, and how one professional photoshoot and brochure flipped Michroma from radio silence to inbound sample requests — without changing the product at all.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear why Alex argues founders should budget roughly 10% of a raise toward actually raising it, why an in-house designer can't replace a multidisciplinary team that understands both biotech and what investors need to see, how We Are Palta turned a 110-slide master deck into five reusable decks plus website and commercial assets, why colorants that don't change taste still command a premium (and what that says about design), and the three questions every founder should ask before hiring an agency.

Key Facts: Michroma

• Ricky Cassini: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassinir/
• Website: michroma.co
• Headquarters: San Francisco, California and Argentina
• What They Do: A precision-fermentation platform using fungal "biofactories" to produce natural food colors and flavors — led by the heat- and pH-stable natural red designed to replace synthetic Red 40.
• Funding: ~$8M raised to date, anchored by a $6.4M seed round that oversubscribed an original $5M target (led by Supply Change Capital, with SOSV/IndieBio and a deep syndicate of strategic and food-industry investors).

Key Facts: We Are Palta

• Alan Valicenti: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanvalicenti/
• Website: wearepalta.com
• Headquarters: Argentina (operating globally)

Blurb

MICHROMA is built on a stubborn technical problem the food industry has never fully solved: natural colors tend to fall apart. They fade, shift, or break down under the heat, light, and pH swings of real manufacturing, which is why so much of the world's food supply still leans on petroleum-derived synthetic dyes like Red 40. Michroma's answer is biology. Using fungal "biofactories" and precision fermentation, the company brews natural colorants — starting with a heat- and pH-stable red — that are designed to survive the processing line and match the performance food makers expect from synthetics, at a cost that can compete rather than command a sustainability premium. 

Episode 111: Twynam Management: Elissa Glorie on Out-Scoping University Research, Techno-Economics, and Avoiding False Assumptions

In this episode, I catch up with Elissa Glorie, Investment Manager at Twynam, a deeply specialized venture capital firm focused on early-stage global decarbonization. Elissa gives us an exclusive look behind the scenes of their thesis-driven investment engine, detailing how their team converts macroeconomic signals into actionable deep-tech bets. She walks us through Twynam’s recent high-profile follow-on into PlasmaLeap Technologies’ $20M USD (~A$30M) Series A, a round alongside the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and global nitrogen giant Yara Growth Ventures. Elissa breaks down their precise, gated due diligence playbook and provides critical advice on why the vast majority of deep-tech deals fall apart under the microscope of realistic technoeconomic models.🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear how Twynam’s internal AI tools scrape academic research before ideas even reach a corporate desk, why a CEO must possess the technical depth to cross-examine their CTO, and how Twynam evaluates decentralized, non-thermal plasma architectures against the centuries-old Haber-Bosch process.

• Elissa Glorie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elissaglorie/
• Website: twynam.com
• Headquarter: Australia and Singapore
• Geographic Mandate: Structurally built for true global deployment—actively tracking and backing winners across the US, India, and Southeast Asia, alongside a dedicated side-vehicle exclusively for the Chinese mainland.
• Investment Sweet Spot: Pre-Seed through Series B, with standard, high-conviction initial checks scaling up to $3M USD.

TWYNAM operates on a central, pragmatic insight: the global economy will not decarbonize out of moral virtue alone—it will decarbonize when clean technologies become undeniably better, faster, and cheaper than fossil incumbents. Rooted in decades of handling real physical assets like heavy industrial farming and mining loops, Twynam takes a rigorous, numbers-first approach to climate tech.

Their team spends half their time building highly detailed, forward-looking theses that anticipate structural bottlenecks before mainstream venture markets spot them. By utilizing custom-built AI discovery pipelines to scan global research data, Twynam uncovers breakthrough chemistry, engineering, and thermal physics plays at the university level, giving them a distinct first-mover advantage as an early institutional partner.

In this episode, I sit down with Sérgio Pinto, the unyielding founder and CEO of Cellva Ingredients, who shares one of the most intense, relentless fundraising stories you will ever hear. Sérgio reveals how he turned a critical, last-minute "no" into a 20 million Reais (~$4M USD) Pre-Series A round led by Amazonian corporate-backed tech powerhouse Digiboard. He outlines the operational complexities of straddling Brazil’s commercial epicenter in São Paulo and its rugged robusta coffee infrastructure in Manaus. Sérgio also takes us deep into the underlying regulatory strategies and unit economics driving Kafkoa—their high-margin, functional cocoa substitute derived entirely from upcycled coffee side-streams.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to discover how Sérgio rescued a dead deal just ten days after his second child was born, how Cellva navigated European and Japanese regulatory pathways without novel food classification, and how they built an integrated network of over 150 local coffee farmers.

• Sérgio Pinto: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiorpinto/
• Website: cellva.com
• Headquarter: São Paulo, Brazil
• Funding: Closed a 20 million Reais (~$4M USD) Pre-Series A round.
• Investor: Round led by DigiBoard, with additional participation from existing backers such as Air Capital and angel investors like Rubens Pereira 

CELLVA INGREDIENTS is redefining circular nutrition by turning Brazil’s massive agricultural side-streams into premium, high-value functional ingredients. While traditionally known for cell-cultivated fat development, Cellva has rapidly scaled a market-ready infrastructure that utilizes micro-encapsulation to transform coffee husks and byproducts into Kafkoa, a multi-tiered structural substitute for cocoa.

By operating directly in the Amazonian robusta coffee corridors, Cellva secures low-cost raw materials while creating sustainable employment for remote farming populations. This distinct environmental mandate provides a unique competitive edge, allowing Cellva to unlock regional state-backed funds, build a resilient supply chain of over 150 local growers, and establish a clear path toward processing thousands of tons annually.

In this episode, I catch up with Liron Yanay, CEO of AgriPass Robotics, an innovative agtech startup that recently closed a $7.5M Seed round. Liron details their journey from their initial pre-seed and matching grants with the Israel Innovation Authority to locking in Harbor Venture Consulting and E44 Climate as key institutional backers. Liron outlines what she calls "Agtech 2.0"—a disciplined philosophy that avoids building hardware from scratch, focusing instead on proprietary AI and contextual intelligence. She shares incredible, practical advice on managing data rooms, building detailed financial projections, and bypassing standard agtech pitfalls through strategic partnerships with global Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).

🎧 Listen to the full episode to learn how Liron leveraged specialized video updates to maintain deep investor trust, why targeting mid-sized farms beats chasing 18-month enterprise sales cycles, and how to successfully structure blended project financing for hardware tech.

• Liron Yanay: https://il.linkedin.com/in/liron-cohen-yanay
• Website: https://www.agripass.co/
• Funding: Recently closed a $7.5M Seed round (incorporating matching non-dilutive grants from the Israel Innovation Authority).
• Core Backers: Led by Harbor Venture Consulting (representing premier US and Latin American family offices) alongside E44 Climate.
• The Mission: Eradicating weed pressure in open-field agriculture through human-inspired, multi-handed mechanical weeding robots driven by real-time contextual intelligence.

AGRIPASS ROBOTICS is pioneering the "Agtech 2.0" wave by engineering an affordable, high-precision mechanical weed control system. Rather than continuing the traditional chemical warfare of spraying or resetting soil biomes through destructive tilling, AgriPass utilizes human-inspired AI to mimic manual weeding at a massive scale. By deploying up to 20 mechanical "hands" governed by real-time spatial vision, their automated system selectively uproots weeds without harming nearby crops or disrupting the soil's organic carbon structure.

In this episode, I sit down with Arnout Dijkhuizen, Principal at Rockstart, a leading early-stage accelerator-vanguard and venture capital fund anchored out of Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Arnout, an agtech investing veteran, opens up about what it truly means to deploy professional capital into pre-seed startups. He explains why Rockstart prioritizes founder "coachability" and deeply grounded industry insights over dense financial plans, and breaks down the exact mechanics behind their selective €100k–€150k initial check model. He also drops some hard truths regarding the European funding landscape, warning founders about the subtle dangers of falling into "grant traps" that can turn a commercial business into a slow-moving, administrative vehicle.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Arnout explain how they helped guide the Indian marketplace Tractor Junction all the way to its massive later-stage rounds, why an exit doesn't need to cross the unicorn threshold to achieve superior venture returns, and how physical AI is optimization-proofing legacy systems like industrial slaughterhouses.

• Arnout Dijkhuizen: be.linkedin.com/in/arnoutdijkhuizen
• Websites: rockstart.com
• Regional Base: Active physical hubs in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Target Profile: The ultimate first institutional capital in a company's life cycle. Primarily focused on North-Western Europe but structurally built to back elite teams globally, with active portfolio winners in the US and India.
• The Math: Deploying €100k to €150k initial checks at the ultra-early, pre-seed junction. Crucially, Rockstart reserves significant capital to protect, defend, and follow on their positions directly up through Series A.

ROCKSTART operates on the unwavering principle that founders are the true rockstars of modern industry, positioning the fund as an embedded operational engine rather than a passive source of capital. Investing at the absolute beginning of an architectural idea—frequently partnering with founders fresh out of research labs or native family operations—Rockstart pairs rapid, multi-week investment decisions with an expansive, a-la-carte network of mentors, commercial architects, and agricultural experts.

In this episode, I sit down with Alberto Criado, Principal at Cardumen Capital, an elite European venture capital firm that has rapidly scaled its assets under management from €50M to nearly €400M. Alberto walks us through Cardumen's highly opportunistic and execution-driven approach to the AgriFoodTech sector. He reveals the math behind their recent investment in Barcelona-based Incapto, explaining how they are completely dismantling the single-use coffee capsule market through an innovative "Coffee-as-a-Service" subscription model. Alberto also pulls back the curtain on portfolio risk management in a capital-scarce environment, discussing why clear exit viability, predictable recurrence, and fast tracks to profitability rule the market today over purely binary technology risks.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Alberto break down why Starbucks isn’t specialty coffee, how they reverse-engineer target exit valuations between €250M and €500M, and how Cardumen uses its dedicated M&A and value-creation teams to act as a true service company for its entrepreneurs.

• Alberto Criado: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertocriadom/?locale=en
• Website: cardumencapital.com
• Headquarters: Madrid, Spain and Tel Aviv, Israel.
• Goal: Investing in deep tech, cybersecurity, AI, and AgriFoodTech pioneers across Europe and Israel, actively managing a high-performing portfolio of over 40 companies (including alternative protein leaders like Oshi).
• Ticket Size & Strategy: Deploying €500k to €1M initial tickets across Europe and the entire food value chain. Structurally flexible, acting primarily as an intensely supportive follow-on investor that strives to be the most active partner on the cap table..

CARDUMEN CAPITAL is an active, cross-border European venture capital firm that avoids rigid, immovable investment theses in favor of agile, opportunistic execution. Recognizing the harsh funding climate facing capital-intensive food tech sectors like precision fermentation, Cardumen strategically balances its portfolio with high-margin, highly recurrent, and low-capex businesses that solve concrete bottleneck inefficiencies for modern enterprises. 

In this episode, I sit down with Nils Eiteneyer, Partner at Capnamic, a premier early-stage venture capital firm based in Germany. Nils brings his background as an ex-operator and McKinsey advisor to explain Capnamic's rigorous approach to early-stage investing through their fourth fund. He shares a masterclass on navigating the intersection of deep tech and structural pressure, explaining why "unsexy" agricultural problems offer the biggest market opportunities, how to build a defensible data moat against big tech, and why the current AgriFood funding winter is actually creating the highest-quality, economically resilient companies we've seen in years.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Nils break down the mechanics of vertical software integrations, why horizontal SaaS is exposed to AI democratization, and how Capnamic collaborates intensely with a select handful of founders each year to build the next generation of category leaders.

• Nils Eiteneyer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-nils-eiteneyer/
• Website: capnamic.com
• Headquarters: Cologne, Berlin, and Munich, Germany.
• Goal: Backing category-defining B2B tech, deep tech, and early-stage infrastructure startups from the German-speaking region (DACH) and broader Europe.
• Investment Profile: Investing out of their fourth fund (~$215M / €190M+). They enter early as a lead or co-lead investor, moving deliberately and selectively by backing only 4 to 6 new companies per year to maintain intense, close partnerships.
• Ticket Size & Ownership: Typically €2M–€3M initially (ranging from €500k for pre-seed up to €5M–€6M for late Series A). They structurally target ~15% ownership to satisfy fund-return mathematics across generations.

CAPNAMIC is a powerhouse European early-stage venture capital firm designed around hyper-selective concentration and hands-on operational support. Rather than spreading capital thinly, Capnamic purposefully caps its new annual investments to ensure its partners can act as embedded allies to founders.

In this episode, I sit down with Jaap Zijlstra, representing Navus, a Dutch family office-backed venture firm. Unlike traditional VCs, Navus leverages the technical heritage of a world-leading dairy robotics family to build clusters of sustainable food and energy companies. Jaap explains why the "AgriFood winter" is not a death knell for innovation, but a necessary maturation phase that favors patient capital over hyper-speed software models. We deep-dive into why Navus doubles down on process technology and hardware-enabled IP (like their investment in Cosaic), and why agriculture will always follow the laws of physics, not the speed of software deployment.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Jaap’s candid take on why family offices are the natural home for hardware-heavy biotech, how they leverage in-house patent offices to vet deep-tech, and why they prioritize "real-world" adoption cycles over "get-rich-quick" exit timelines.

• Jaap Zijlstra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaap-zijlstra-48b69319/
• Website: https://navusholding.com/
• Headquarters: Netherlands
• Goal: To build clusters of successful tech companies in sustainable food and energy, leveraging the family's deep-rooted experience in global machinery and robotics.
• Investment Profile: Roughly 25 portfolio companies. Invests from the family office balance sheet (not a traditional fund), allowing for multi-stage, multi-year holding periods. Ticket sizes vary from $1M–$2M (Seed/Series A) to significantly more for private equity-style deals.

NAVUS is a Dutch family office-backed investment vehicle specializing in controlled environment agriculture, robotics, automation, and alternative ingredient production technology. By operating outside the constraints of a standard 7-to-10-year fund cycle, they provide the "patient capital" required to navigate the harsh realities of physical-world agriculture and energy hardware.

In this episode, I sit down with Jennifer Côté, CEO and Co-Founder of Opalia, a Montreal-based biotechnology company pioneering animal-free dairy by producing real whole milk from bovine mammary cells. Jennifer shares a transparent, reality-check account of what it takes to close a $3.2M CAD Seed round in the challenging 2026 funding climate. She breaks down the technical differentiation that separates cellular dairy from the struggling cultivated meat sector, explains how to leverage non-dilutive government grants, and details the grueling process of filtering a pipeline of 400 investors down to a committed, high-quality cap table.

🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Jennifer’s take on building a "Type A" hyper-transparent data room, how she fields macro environmental objections, and why real transparency beats over-inflated hype when partnering with sector-specific venture capital.

• Jennifer Côté: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-cote/
• Website: opaliafoods.com
• Headquarters: Montreal, Canada.
• Goal: To eliminate the intensive global reliance on cattle by manufacturing authentic whole milk (with matching functional proteins, fats, and taste) using a highly capital-efficient, mammalian cell-based bioreactor system.
• Milestone: Raised $6M CAD total over 6 years (with remarkable capital efficiency compared to peers raising hundreds of millions) and recently closed the first $3.2M CAD tranche of their Seed round.

OPALIA is a Canadian cellular agriculture company pioneering a new era of sustainable dairy. Instead of using precision fermentation (yeast/bacteria) or slaughtering animals for cultivated meat, Opalia isolates mammary gland cells from cows just once and initiates lactation continuously inside custom, low-cost bioreactor vessels.