Big Idea Ventures brings vegan liquid egg start-up into the fold

Evo Foods of Mumbai is a food-tech company that combines science and plant biochemistry to create a vegan liquid egg alternative

Evo Foods of Mumbai has signed Big Idea Ventures and Ryan Bethencourt — scientist, vegan entrepreneur and Shark Tank personality— as its first angel investor and advisor. The start-up combines science and plant biochemistry to create a vegan liquid egg alternative.

A US-Asia impact venture firm, Big Idea is a venture capital and accelerator fund. The company claims to undertake a deeper due diligence in raising seed and growth-stage companies by using acceleration to invest in top performers. 

Challenger brands in Big Idea Ventures portfolio include lab-grown shrimp start-up Shiok Meats of Singapore, jackfruit meat Karana, and Chinese Impossible Foods rival Zhenmeat.

Ryan Bethencourt is a scientist and entrepreneur based in San Francisco. The list of organisations under his belt is long, but suffice to say he co-founded Wild Earth to pioneer biotechnology and cellular agriculture.

Hello India 🇮🇳 sounds like it’s time for a 🌱 revolution!”

Bethencourt posted on LinkedIn

Bethencourt is also a partner at Babel Ventures and co-founder and former programme director at IndieBio, a biology accelerator and early-stage seed fund.

Liquid egg alternative

Evo Foods is the brainchild of Kartik Dixit and Shraddha Bhansali. They founded the company in 2019 and set out on a mission: to disrupt India’s egg market with a 100% plant-based liquid egg product. 

Harnessing cutting-edge food biotechnology, Evo Foods takes proteins from lentils to create an animal-free egg substitute that has no cholesterol or antibiotics.

Evo Food has yet to launch its first prototype, but the promising vegan egg has gained angel investment to capitalise on the concept.

“When we saw the investment opportunity from Evo, it was pretty clear that Kartik was on to something massive and would be a game-changer for not only the India market but globally,” Andrew Ive, Big Idea Ventures founder and managing general partner, told Green Queen.

For Ive, Evo Foods heralds the value India can bring to the global alternative proteins landscape. “Our agricultural diversity and talent pool means Indian entrepreneurs can bring products made from pulses, lentils and other crops to market, providing ever-increasing choice to consumers all over the world, and at affordable prices,” he added.

Vegan protein challenger brands

Evo Foods’ vegan liquid egg is part of a new breed of challenger brands addressing the need for sustainably sourced, animal cruelty-free protein. 

This generation of food-tech start-up includes Clara Foods of California, a b2b start-up that uses fermentation technology to create egg-like protein without animal cells. Another example is Just, a technology platform that translates raw material from plants into data that fuels the discovery of food technologies that can change the way we eat. 

Clara Foods business model targets food manufacturers, but Just’s protein, which is made from mung beans, retails in Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau as well as the US, Just’s domestic market.

Challenger brands tapping into the animal-free protein substitute have been focusing on replacing meat and all that it has to offer in terms of texture and flavour. We are yet to see more food innovators exploring the potential in a vegan liquid egg product.