TrendiTech announced this week that it has raised additional seed funding of more than $6 million CAD for its agri-food technology.
The Vancouver-based robotics startup is dedicated to up-cycling food waste into valuable products.
The funding was led by current investors WGG Capital Canada and Florida’s Vestech Partners and brings Trendi’s accumulative seed round total to over $8 million.
“Trendi continues to impress and excite me with their forethought for the future, in solving a huge global problem: food waste,” says Herbert Madan of WGG Capital Canada. “Not only does Trendi’s BioTrim solve the problem of food waste, but they are also helping to build solutions and sustainability in food security.”
Trendi was founded in 2019 and last spring was named a semi-finalist in the Government of Canada’s Food Waste Reduction Challenge. It has built a team of technologists, scientists, engineers, innovators, marketers, and “food waste heroes” to spearhead several initiatives for the company, including The Pledge to Stop Food Waste.
“Every year, billions of tonnes of edible food are needlessly thrown away—enough food to feed every hungry person on the planet,” explains Carissa Campeotto, cofounder and CMO of Trendi. “According to the WWF, on farms, this accounts for 1.2 billion tonnes globally per year, and about 931 million tonnes from households, food service, and retail sectors.”
At Trendi’s core is robotics technology, which includes the cutting-edge BioTrim, a unit that can rescue misfit fruits and vegetables before they’re wasted and convert them into shelf-stable products. Trendi currently has three BioTrim models in development, servicing a variety of industries, from farms and manufacturers to distributors.
“Our goal is to spearhead change with our BioTrim technology and galvanize the community to join the fight,” said Campeotto.
Trendi expects to give the community a first look at its BioTrim mobile unit this summer.
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