Ferm Labs raises €3 million to scale high-yield fermentation platform

Swiss-Italian ingredient startup Ferm Labs has secured €3 million (US$3.5 million) to expand a bioprocessing platform designed to accelerate the production of natural flavor ingredients using microbial fermentation.

The seed investment was led by CDP Venture Capital through its Green Transition Fund, financed under NextGenerationEU, with participation from Fund F, Redstone in collaboration with Euregio+ and Alpine VC, and confectionery manufacturer Loacker Group.

Founded in 2025 by serial entrepreneurs Stephanie Lüpold and Mattia Baroni, Ferm Labs is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, with its production and R&D activities based in South Tyrol, Italy.

The company has developed a non-GMO microbial fermentation platform that uses controlled process parameters to convert low-value side streams into ingredients containing kokumi peptide profiles. According to Ferm Labs, its approach can reduce fermentation processes that would conventionally take weeks to a matter of hours.

• Ferm Labs has raised €3 million (US$3.5 million) to increase bioprocessing capacity, expand its European commercial team and support further ingredient development.
• Its platform uses non-GMO microorganisms and low-value side streams to produce concentrated natural flavor ingredients through accelerated fermentation processes.
• Flagship ingredient Kokumesan is already targeting industrial cheese applications, with Ferm Labs claiming substantial reductions in the amount of raw cheese required in formulations.

The technology is intended to address one of the persistent challenges surrounding naturally produced food ingredients: achieving sufficient productivity and yield to make them economically competitive at industrial scale.

Ferm Labs produces its resulting flavor ingredients as stable pastes and powders without E-numbers, added fats or high levels of sodium. Its first commercial focus is Kokumesan, a milk-based flavor builder developed for industrial cheese applications.

The company says the ingredient can reproduce characteristics associated with aged cheese while allowing manufacturers to reduce the amount of raw cheese incorporated into a formulation.

Ferm Labs claims Kokumesan can reduce raw cheese inclusion from around 20% to below 1% without compromising sensory performance, resulting in cost-in-use savings of as much as 75%. It also says reducing cheese inclusion can limit the accumulation of fat and sodium during processing, helping address equipment clogging and shelf-life challenges.

“We essentially broke the math on industrial flavor kinetics,” said Mattia Baroni, CTO & Co-Founder of Ferm Labs. “By accelerating fermentation speed and yield, we eliminated the cost penalty of natural ingredients while delivering a richer, cleaner profile at an unbeatable cost-in-use.”

Although cheese flavoring provides the company's initial commercial application, Ferm Labs plans to use the same underlying bioprocessing technology to develop ingredients for additional food categories.

The approach centers on controlling the conditions under which microorganisms operate rather than genetically modifying them. By adjusting fermentation parameters and increasing process speed and yield, Ferm Labs is seeking to make naturally derived functional flavor ingredients viable for high-volume food manufacturing.

“The era of flavor trade-offs is officially over,” said Stephanie Lüpold, CEO & Co-Founder of Ferm Labs. “Kokumesan proves what our platform can do in cheese flavoring, but it is just our launchpad. We are building a category-defining B2B ingredient engine, powering the next era of natural food by uniting deep-tech bioprocessing with uncompromising taste at global scale.”

The latest investment will now move that technology further toward industrial deployment. Ferm Labs plans to direct the capital toward three areas, led by an expansion of its bioprocessing capacity at its South Tyrol operation.

It will also expand its European B2B sales team as it looks to increase commercial adoption of Kokumesan, while adding R&D personnel to develop ingredients for new product categories.

The presence of Loacker Group among the investors gives the round an additional strategic food-industry component. The Italian company is an established confectionery manufacturer, alongside the institutional and venture investors participating in the financing.

CDP Venture Capital, meanwhile, said Ferm Labs' combination of manufacturing efficiency, sustainability and ingredient performance had been central to its decision to lead the investment.

“Ferm Labs has built an extraordinary deep-tech platform that redefines efficiency, sustainability, and flavor performance,” said Enrico Filì, Head of Green Transition Fund at CDP Venture Capital. “We are thrilled to lead this round and support Stephanie, Mattia, and the team as they scale manufacturing and drive European expansion.”

The funding comes little more than a year after Ferm Labs was founded and will support the company's transition from its first commercial ingredient toward a broader portfolio built around its high-yield fermentation process.

If you liked this, check these out...

• AuX Labs raises US$4 million to commercialize precision fermentation cheese platform

• Heriot-Watt researchers develop low-saturated-fat vegan cheese using oleogel technology

• Leiden University-led FungCows project wins grant to develop fungal casein for vegan cheese