Milwaukee food upcycling startup Agricycle Global has closed a $2.4 million two-part seed fundraising round in order to grow its ingredient supply business and more fully integrate its supply chain, the company announced earlier this month.
Two Wisconsin-based firms led the round: Madison's MaSa Partners and Milwaukee's CSA Partners LLC. The company announced the first part of its seed round in April 2020.
Started in 2015 as a school project by CEO Josh Shefner, Agricycle Global partners with rural farmers in Africa to take excess food that would otherwise go to waste and create ethically made food products in a way that's designed to help eliminate extreme poverty.
With the new funding, Agricycle is shifting its focus from its dried fruit business, Jali Fruit Co., and its sustainable charcoal brand, Tropicoal Ignition, to its ingredient supply brand, Field Better Ingredients, Shefner said. Sourcing from its partners in Africa, the company produces 159 different ingredients ranging from cassava flour to gooseberries, and sells them to consumer packaged good (CPG) manufacturers in North America and Europe.
Agricycle Global is already supplying ingredients to a few pilot medium and large CPG manufacturers that are using its products to make cookies, crackers and premium dog food, Shefner said. It's focused on getting its ingredients into more products on more shelves.
"This is the bend in the curve for our growth right now," Shefner said.
With the seed funding, Agricycle is also planning to acquire a fleet of trucks and a milling facility in Africa in order to more fully control its supply chain, Shefner said. The company said consolidating the supply chain and upcycling food loss helps it beat commodity prices.
At its Milwaukee headquarters at 313 N. Plankinton Ave., Agricycle has four full-time and four part-time employees. It also has 55 full-time employees in East Africa, Shefner said.
“In less than two years that spanned a pandemic, Josh and the team have built Agricycle from an ambitious concept into a robust global business," MaSa Partners co-founder Max Duckworth said in a statement. "(They're) solving myriad problems, creating previously non-existent opportunities for remote farmers and women and delivering real impact in a number of areas."
Madison's Wisconsin Investment Partners, BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation Inc., Chicago's Clean Energy Trust and Kentucky's Connetic Ventures also invested in Agricycle's seed round, according to the announcement.
