Hubcycle: Julien Lesage shares how to get funded in 2024

Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs

In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2024 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.

Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners; Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.

Episode 10: Hubcycle: Julien Lesage shares how to get funded in 2024

In this episode, Alex talked to Julien, CEO of Hubcycle, a company which runs into factories and find where there are losses or leftovers, recurring by products, recurring losses, and convert or transform it into new ingredients. Julien shared about the strategies, mindset, and learning moments that shaped their fundraising journey. The podcast talks about the challenges of fundraising, the strategies used to attract and retain investors, and the importance of maintaining transparency, resilience, and alignment with long-term goals.

Key Facts Hubcycle:

Goal: To increase the yield of our agricultural resources.
Recently raised €15 Million, Series A.

Alex’s Top Findings:

HubCycle’s use of a fundraising partner is uncommon but was pivotal due to their complex, non-SaaS business model. “ So basically we had a fundraiser for this round basically because we have kind of a complex business. We are not like SaaS business, we are an industry and at some point you have to make the playbook clear for VCs to understand how scalable the model is.” Julien shared.
Prioritized aligning with people who understood their business model. " When you work with the right people, you want to align interests. If we speak about the retainer, it's almost nothing compared to the rest. So we are aligned and we want to be aligned on our aim and on the aim of the project, which is to seal the deal."
Open communication about potential risks and challenges with investors built trust. " You're speaking with people that went through the same process as you are. We have always been very transparent. When we are receiving a challenge from the team or from auditors or anything, we're sharing mail. Without any translation or any hiding. That’s when you build confidence and trust."