Singapore-based start-up receives funding from the Trendlines Agrifood Fund

The Trendlines Group is pleased to announce that its fund, Trendlines Agrifood Fund has made its second investment, investing in Insectta, an early-stage Singaporean start-up focused on the extraction of valuable biomaterials from insects.

Founded in 2017, Insectta originally started as an insect farm focused on producing alternative proteins for animal feeds, but recently pivoted to the extraction of biomaterials from insects. Insectta produces high value, novel materials which can be applied across multiple industries such as agrifood, pharmaceutical and electronics. Insectta’s first innovative technology offers an efficient, sustainable and cost-effective means of producing chitosan that surpasses all existing technologies currently available.

Chitosan, first registered as an active ingredient in 1986, has physiochemical properties such as bioadhesive, biocompatible, and biodegradable, making it particularly suitable for applications related to biomedical engineering, food and biodegradable plastics. The market for chitosan is expected to grow dramatically as new applications are developed and mass-produced.

Chitosan is typically derived from crustaceans, but the current extraction process is highly unsustainable due to the amount of chemicals required for the process. Insectta’s technology allows extraction of chitosan from insects without the use of harsh chemicals, thus setting a new industry standard for purer, traceable, and high-quality chitosan. Using byproducts created by insect farms as the raw materials required for the extraction process, Insectta’s technology builds on the circular economy within the insect farming industry. Through a biorefinery process, Insectta can produce chitosan, protein and probiotics, products estimated to triple the larvae’s final product value.

News of this investment has appeared in Yahoo Finance and The Business Times