Top 15 Food and Beverage Startup Investors in South Africa (July 2026)

Portfolio highlights

• Novel Farms — Novel Farms uses microbial fermentation to develop cruelty-free, inexpensive and tunable bioscaffolds for the production of cell-based meat products. Novel Farms mission is to craft the taste and texture of the gourmet meats and transform cell-based meat consumption into a sought-after culinary experience for the next generation of consciouseaters.
• Minus — A sustainable coffee alternative, combining the taste, look, and smell of coffee with a smaller footprint to ensure a brighter future for coffee and the planet.
• Unicorn Biotechnologies — Unicorn Biotechnologies is developing a fully automated manufacturing platform to enable cellular agriculture producers to seamlessly scale products from the lab bench to supermarket shelves. Our full stack platform combines hardware, software and analytics to completely automate cellular agriculture manufacturing, reducing costs and increasingproduct quality. By providing a clear path to scale cellular agriculture from grams to tons, we will improve human and planetary health and drive the transition to animal free agriculture.

Portfolio highlights

• Propel Foods — Startup that creates plant-based and hybrid protein through technology.
• Peruvian Veef — Peruvian Veef is an offline and online store that offers real burgers, grilled seitan, crispy cravings, and vegan nugget products.
• High Time Foods — High Time Foods provides shelf-stable and moldable plant-based meat alternatives to foodservice operators. Their first product is a plant-based chicken alternative that does not require refrigeration. The product is moldable and can be used in any cuisine as a substitute for chicken.

Portfolio highlights

• Singtel — The Singtel Group, Asia's leading communications group provides a diverse range of services including fixed, mobile, data, internet, TV, infocomms technology (ICT) and digital solutions.
• Avaada — Business and sustainability can go hand-in-hand. Their unique strategy interweaves business goals with environmental sustainability and social responsibility, producing mutually beneficial results. By contributing to community’s socio-economic development in the short-term, they foresee delivery of continual value to their shareholders. Throughtheir community engagement initiatives, they are contributing to uplift the lifestyle of communities they work with.
• China Energy Engineering Corporation — China Energy Engineering Corporation is the solutions providers for the power industry across the world. It also enables to provide customers with one-stop integrated solutions and full life-cycle project management services. They offer survey and design services for large-scale power generation projects covering grid projects, power sources, andconsultancy services including evaluation, supervision of power projects, policy consultation, and assessment.The company sell and manufactures civil explosives and cement and provides blasting services for projects. It also operates power plants and other infrastructure projects such as environmental protection projects, highways, and water conservancy projects.China Energy Engineering Corporation was named The Top 150 Global Design Firms” in 2015 for their design business and 15th among “The Top 250 Global Contractors” in 2014 for their contracting businesses respectively by ENR.China Energy Engineering Corporation was established on December 19, 2014, and is headquartered in Chaoyang District, Beijing, China.

Portfolio highlights

• CASIMIR —
• Exobiosphere — Exobiosphere is a cutting-edge company operating at the intersection of space exploration and biotechnology.
• SignalRank — SignalRank Corporation is a FinTech company in the Venture space. It focuses on the seed stage asset class and uses data analytics to allocate capital to the best seed fund managers for their top performing companies. GPRank and CompanyRank are two proprietary algorithms it leverages to automate capital allocation. The company invests from balancesheet. Its customers are seed stage investors with outstanding companies in their portfolio.

Portfolio highlights

• SettleKit — We help newcomers to the US set up their life here
• De Novo Foodlabs — Producing non-animal dairy proteins using precision fermentation
• Smart Separations — Smart Separations is a limited company based in London UK that has patented an innovative microfiltration technology to produce ceramic filters with self-assembled controllable pores of uniform size in the range between <1 and 50µm. This tight pore size control and range availability will revolutionise the field of MF with a cost-effectiveproduct.It aims to be the world’s leader in MF and particle separations technology – filling the void gap that exists in the market nowadays.

Portfolio highlights

• PatientPartner — Discover PatientPartner, the leading patient engagement software transforming pharma and med-tech with scalable, data-driven solutions that drive better health outcomes.
• Lipidio Pharmaceuticals — A Unique Approach to Treating Obesity Precision Targeting of the Skin Exploiting the skin as an endocrine organ Historically regarded as a protective barrier organ, the skin is now recognized as an active endocrine organ capable of synthesizing, and secreting diverse hormones and signaling
• SEngine Precision Medicine — The Search Engine For Identifying Personalized Cancer Treatments.

Portfolio highlights

• MAOLAC — MAOLAC combines proteomics & NLP (search algorithm) to create Functional Milk Proteins (FMPs) that enable impact nutrition
• De Novo Foodlabs — Producing non-animal dairy proteins using precision fermentation

Portfolio highlights

• Opalia — Opalia is introducing a new era of dairy: functional, delicious, and sustainable dairy made from mammary cells.
• Hooked Foods — Leading the transition to a harmless seafood system by serving healthy vegan seafood for everybody to truly enjoy.
• Cultimate Foods — At Cultimate, we are transforming the flavor and aroma industry with natural innovative ingredients.

Portfolio highlights

• Planet42 — Having your own car has never been easier. Planet42 is a vehicle rental company offering rent-to-buy car service for private clients.
• AgrigateOne — AgrigateOne is an online platform that enables openness between growers and buyers and gets data about agriculture and marine logistics.
• Naked Insurance — The new way to cover your stuff: savings & convenience through AI. Naked Insurance offers online insurance for car, home and contents. Get a quote in 90 seconds!

Portfolio highlights

• Trade Shield — Trade Shield's aim is to increase access to trade credit facilities for those companies that most need them and will benefit the most from them.
• Mia Healthcare —
• Breaze Delivery — Site will be available soon. Thank you for your patience!

Portfolio highlights

• Livestock Wealth — Livestock Wealth is a crowdfarmingTM company that allows people to invest in livestock and earn from sale of the offspring.Their unique CrowdFarmingTM concept allows individuals to share the facilities of a commercial livestock farm while our experts look after their cows on a day to day basis.Cows have been a source of pride and a store ofwealth in Africa for centuries. The wealth in cows is based on something real – beef. The company enables anyone to be an organic beef farmer.

Portfolio highlights

• VALR — Buy and sell bitcoin, ethereum & more | Pay anyone for free with VALR Pay
• OfferZen — On OfferZen, Dutch tech companies reach out to you with upfront role and salary info so you can make the right career move.
• Real Time Wine — Share your wine moments. Real Time Wine is the social wine discovery app for everyone who enjoys wine, not just those who understand it. [In App Stores NOW!]

Portfolio highlights

• Maia Farms — Maia Farms creates sustainable mushroom and mycelium ingredients for food makers. Clean-label, high-performance, and built to scale.
• Nakitora AI LLC — NAKITORA’s mission is to accelerate food & beverage (F&B) innovation by harnessing real-time AI insights, helping brands create the right products for the right consumers, faster than ever. Their core product, TasteGPT™, is a generative intelligence platform that ingests 10M+ daily data points (menus, reviews, social, e-retail), using adomain-tuned LLM and real-time vector search to instantly surface emerging trends and unmet needs. They serve global F&B brands, CPGs, and innovators who need rapid, data-driven product development. Compared to batch analytics or generic tools, NAKITORA offers real-time, domain-specific ideation and zero-survey prediction.
• De Novo Foodlabs — Producing non-animal dairy proteins using precision fermentation

Portfolio highlights

• SwiftVee — SwiftVEE is a livestock trading mobile app. They support live webcast livestock auctions and silent auctions. Their platform facilitates the discovery and viewing of livestock auctions.They provide webcast advertising, online auctions, and online livestock insurance services and data products for financial institutions.
• Tanda — As a Tanda Agent, you can sell Kenya's favorite digital products, and grow your duka while you're at it
• Digital Cabinet — Digital Cabinet makes your business paperless. Security is the topmost priority for the Digital Cabinet, so save time and money with the Digital Cabinet.

Portfolio highlights

• Planet42 — Having your own car has never been easier. Planet42 is a vehicle rental company offering rent-to-buy car service for private clients.
• LifeCheq — LifeCheq partners with insurers and advisory firms to deliver AI-enabled distribution, boost adviser productivity, and transform how financial advice is delivered.
• SweepSouth — Book a home cleaning online from your mobile, tablet or computer. SweepSouth connects you with a cleaner in minutes. Cleaners are experienced, reliable, efficient and insured.