Jay&Joy: César Augier shares how to get funded in 2025

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 2025 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 27: Jay&Joy: César Augier shares how to get funded in 2025

In this episode, I sat down with Cesar, the CEO of Jay&Joy, a pioneer in organic plant-based cheese in Europe. We unpacked his remarkable journey of rescuing the company from bankruptcy, rebuilding trust after a product recall, and leading a high-stakes €2M fundraise over the holiday season to acquire a major competitor. From navigating food safety crises to executing rapid M&A under pressure, Cesar shares real, hard-won lessons on resilience, investor strategy, and what it takes to scale in the evolving alt-dairy space.

Key Facts Jay&Joy:

Goal: To produce cheese that's better for the environment, for health, and for animal welfare.
Recently raised €2M.

Alex’s Top Findings:

Rescuing a Brand Can Be a Strategic Move. Cesar bought Jay&Joy out of receivership, seeing strong fundamentals despite a product recall. " I met the leader in France on plant-based meat, and we discussed what was happening to Jay&Joy. The products were amazing, and the fundamentals of the company were very good. So we decided to start a due diligence. We met the previous founders. We met the, the teams we discussed with clients, customers, etc. After a few days, we were convinced that there was an opportunity and that this company should continue to operate."
Time Pressure Shaped Investor Strategy. The raise had to close in 40 days over the holidays, so Cesar pivoted from VCs to agile family offices and angels. "We spent a lot of time with VC funds... it was too short. So we pivoted to family offices and business angels."
Use Strategic Channels for Angel Funding. Cesar tapped into French angel networks like Station F and Super Capital, raising €500K through tailored outreach. " We met people through that channels and we used other like networks of entrepreneurs and investors in France. The difficult thing I would say how do you get into those networks and how do you manage to post your message . We fine tune the message to make it fit with the actual audience. It worked. So I pre raised like, 500 k through those channels. "