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Viktorija Vaitkevičienė, Head of KŪB Koinvesticinis Fondas. Photo by Judita Grigelytė (VŽ).
The new company Cogastro, which has developed a program for monitoring and managing insect farms, has attracted an investment of 100,000 euros from the Co-investment Fund and private investors.
Developed by Mantė Šidlauskaitė and Artūras Bartkevič, the computer program allows insect breeders to monitor, manage and make decisions based on data analysis, increasing the productivity of insect farms. Such IT programs are also used by traditional livestock farms, but insect breeders have so far entered and analyzed the data themselves. Launched in March, the app is already used by insect breeders in Australia, Israel, Belgium, Sweden, and Nigeria.
“Insects are grown for protein, which is produced in a more sustainable way, because they need less land and water resources to grow, and insects emit much less carbon dioxide.” Insect farms are growing worldwide and hundreds of millions of euros are being invested in them. This is a new and growing market and it is only a matter of time before insect breeding is a standard type of agriculture, ”said Mantė Šidlauskaitė, founder and director of UAB Cogastro.
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Although it is still expensive to extract protein from insects, the founder of Cogastro hopes that the technology they have developed will help ensure that the price of the insect raw material is more competitive than that of soy or meat in the future.
The developers of the company intend to invest the funds received from the Co-investment Fund in the development of products and the search for new clients. Three Business Angels have invested in this startup together with the Investment Fund.
According to Viktorija Vaitkevičienė, director of the Co-investment Fund, this market has great potential as the culture of responsible consumption becomes more popular in the world.
“Insect cultivation and the use of raw materials in the European Union are the strictest, a new area where research is still underway to make sure insects do not transmit disease.” Therefore, when investing, we are aware of the risk: the market for such a business may simply not be ready or ready yet. The responsibility and sustainability of such a business is also crucial, as scientists say the insect world is shrinking rapidly. On the other hand, the insect protein market is projected to increase in 2030. It will reach almost 9 billion. EUR. Therefore, we hope that we will be one of the first to contribute to the origins of this business and support its development, “is quoted in the V. Vaitkevičien prensa press release.
An estimated 2 billion. Populations in 130 countries around the world eat insects, and interest in them is growing rapidly.
“For example, food giant Nestlé has already started making pet food with crickets. Companies like PepsiCo and Tyson Foods are also actively monitoring the evolution of the market and players, and the actions of Beyond Meat, the only alternative meat producer that Listed on the US Stock Exchange, they have increased 7-fold in just over a year. in a press release
M. Šidlauskaitė, who graduated in economics and worked in the IT field, became interested in insects by watching a documentary on agriculture, in which it was said that people would eat insects in the restaurant in the future. He got so excited about the idea that he quit his job and established his own insect farm. It was then that M. Šidlauskaitė noted that by compiling the data herself, there is no time left to analyze it, nor is there the possibility of calculating the economic value of the business. The application created by Cogastro does it all on its own.
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