UK-based, Entocycle is a tech startup that provides products & services targeted at established companies & new entrants in the insect industry. Their flagship (patent-protected) product, “Entosight Neo”, is a machine vision hw & sw package designed to improve accuracy, efficiency & productivity in large-scale “black soldier fly” (BSF) farms. The system reduces the need for manual processes such as weighing larvae, multi-step handling & (often inaccurate) counting (able to count 3,000 larvae per second with 98% accuracy); the result is higher feed conversation rates, lower mortality & up to 25% larger insects. Entosight Neo is also optimized for integration with conveyance systems & IoT-enabled for remote monitoring & maintenance. The startup’s second product “Fly Rooms” is a turnkey climate-controlled breeding solution for larvae eggs (aka the livestock that gets “raised” in the Entosight Neo). Finally, the firm offers full BSF farm design & build, as well as feasibility studies, project mgmt. & supply chain services (bear in mind, insect farms can also integrated into the waste mgmt. cycle, as BSFs gobble up food waste). Entocycle is now in commercial discussion over its first sales of Entosight Neo. The firm also claims it has helped customers build two BSF facilities in the UK & to have “begun several large-scale projects in other geographies that will amount to full scale farms within 18 months”. Entocycle was founded in 2016 by Keiran Whitaker (CEO) & now employs 21 people at its London headquarters. Its worth noting here, that global insect protein market shows no signs of slowing down, with demand forecast to reach $9.5bn by 2030 (driven by global meat consumption, rising prices of soy & fishmeal, as well as increased government support); the BSF market is the largest segment, expected to grow 30.5% CAGR to 8m tons/ $4bn by 2033. Interestingly, Europe is the currently largest BSF market – e.g. a 2021 study by the WFF suggests that the UK could replace 20% of its soy imports with insect protein by 2050 – so naturally, there quite a few startups Entocylce ~competes with e.g. Hexafly (IE) (€4m), InnovaFeed (FR) (<€450m), nextProtein (FR) (€12m), Bioflytech (ES) (€16m) & Protix (NL) (€100m). <Source: feednavigator.com, techcrunch.com, agfundernews.com, finsmes.com>
