Fungu’it Raises €4 million to Build a New Ingredient Platform with Fungi
- Marc Violo
- Jun 20
- 3 min read
France’s Fungu’it is betting that fungi—not additives—hold the key to flavouring the next generation of food. The Dijon-based startup has just raised €4 million to scale a solid-state fermentation process that turns industrial food waste into high-impact, natural flavourings. The goal: clean-label ingredients that perform like meat or cocoa, without the environmental or sensory baggage.
Backed by Asterion Ventures, Evolem, and UI Investissement, the funding will support the construction of a pilot-scale production facility, patent filings, and the expansion of a proprietary database mapping fermentation inputs to sensory outputs.
Making Flavour, Not Extracts
The flavour industry is worth $20 billion globally, but it’s facing pressure. Consumers are increasingly wary of ultra-processed foods and vague ingredient labels. Many so-called “natural flavours” are still the product of highly industrial processing steps, even if their source material is plant-derived.
Fungu’it is taking a different approach. By growing selected fungal strains on food industry byproducts—like wheat bran, brewer’s spent grain, or seed press cakes—it creates umami-rich, roasted, or cocoa-like flavour compounds without needing synthetic additives. The process relies on solid-state fermentation: fungi grow on moist solids, not in liquid tanks, metabolising the substrate and generating aromatic molecules as a result.
At the end of fermentation, the material is dried and milled into a flavouring powder. No freeze-drying, no solvent extraction, and no need for tropical imports.
Not Just Fungi. Fungi + Data.
The platform’s value isn’t just in its yield—it’s in its precision. Fungu’it is actively building a fermentation database to predict and design flavour outcomes based on combinations of fungi, substrates, and processing conditions. This data-driven layer allows the team to iterate efficiently and deliver tailored flavour solutions for specific clients and applications.
The team aims to offer ingredients that meet clean-label expectations and industrial price points. To do this, they’ve selected fungal species with proven safety records and long-standing use in food—many of which are already used at industrial scale in Asia. This has enabled early supply chain reliability and made it easier to secure partnerships across meat alternatives, snacks, sauces, and culinary bases.
Clean Flavour, Lower Footprint
The environmental case is equally strong. Compared to submerged fermentation, Fungu’it's process cuts energy use by 50%, water use by 90%, and carbon emissions by 92%, according to internal lifecycle assessments. By upcycling food waste instead of using fresh crops, it also helps decouple flavour production from agricultural volatility.
One of its first products, a cocoa alternative, is already gaining attention. Capable of replacing up to 25% of cocoa powder in a formulation, it’s designed to stabilise supply chains rocked by climate disruption and rising prices. Other formulations target the meat analogue market, where off-notes and weak flavour profiles remain a barrier to adoption.
Many of today’s meat alternatives are seen as bland or overly processed. Plant proteins like soy, pea, or faba often bring off-notes or lack the fats and amino acids that give conventional meat its depth of flavour. Yeast extracts and artificial flavourings are often used to compensate, but the results can still feel flat.
Fungu’it’s fermentation-driven solution is designed to address this by producing umami, roasted, and meaty notes that elevate the sensory profile of plant-based products and make them more desirable to a broader audience.
Scaling a Fungi-Flavour Platform
Fungu’it currently operates a pilot facility capable of producing a few dozen tonnes of fermented ingredient annually—enough for early-stage testing, prototypes, and R&D partnerships. Industrial trials are already underway, and the new funding will enable expansion into higher volumes.
The startup’s long-term vision is to license or co-develop flavour systems with ingredient manufacturers and flavour houses, embedding their fermented powders into broader portfolios.
From improving flavour in plant-based products to reducing the dependence on volatile crops like cocoa, Fungu’it’s proposition is clear: if you want natural taste without synthetic baggage, you’ll need fungi—and the right tech to control them.
