Success in San Fran
NXW were a part of shaping Aotearoa New Zealand’s first collective at FFT San Francisco – arguably the world’s leading foodtech showcase. Founders, CEOs and Chairs from six of NZ’s leading food-tech ventures - Ārepa, AndFoods, Daisy Lab, Miruku, Opo Bio and NXW - were selected to join Katy Bluett, Exec Director of FFA as a collective.
Over the week, this Kiwi collective pitched and hustled explaining why NZ’s foodtech pipeline is different from the many other ecosystems given our eco-valley focus and ability to build truly scalable global food technologies for APAC. Amongst these pitches was NXW, introducing their Nutrition from Water™ technology platform and flagship product line Marine Whey™ - nutritious, protein-packed ingredients catering to sports and active lifestyles.
The Main Event - FFT Expo
The Future Food Tech expo was an opportunity to pitch and network amongst food companies big and small, from PepsiCo to Ārepa and everything in between. This presented a great opportunity for NXW to promote the scalability of their Nutrition from Water™ technology platform and demonstrate the applications of their ingredients with Marine Whey™ Protein Bites in two different flavours - choc brownie and peanut caramel. Hundreds of Bites were sampled at the expo, and were well-received by attendees.
Talks from food companies and VCs were enlightening and encouraging, including Kiwi founders like Matt Gibson from New Culture building non-dairy cheese technology. We heard from leading VCs tell us whilst the first wave of VC investment is down and retreating towards AI investment, the second wave of foodtech builders and opportunity is just beginning and the time is now to build.
Following pitches, heads of global companies commented that NXWs momentum was surprising, and the natural climate & food technologies very interesting. Key discussion areas were nutrition, texture, COGs and speed to market.
VIP Events - MISTA foods and GFI
NXW was invited to showcase at various VIP events over the week. Firstly at the MISTA cocktail evening alongside other MISTA members, and then at the Good Food Institute's oversubscribed party up the top of the Salesforce tower. Both were great opportunities to pitch and mingle with select groups of investors and customers.
NXW team at FFT expo. Left to right: Toby (CEO), Adrienne (CTO), Eleni (Head of Marketing), Alex (Founder), Greg (Board Chair)
Toby Lane (CEO) speaking at FFT
Eleni (Head of Marketing) running the stand at MISTA
Overall, the kiwi cohort proved that New Zealand is much more than a land of milk and honey, with total NZ territory being only 4% land and the rest pristine ocean and water — there is so much more than can be done, non-extractively.
New Zealand’s first debut at FFT was a great opportunity for NXW to showcase their technology platform and engage with the community, planting the seed for global partnerships with the world’s leading food companies, CVCs, VCs and country ecosystems. As NXW approaches their next fundraising round, these connections will enable them to scale their biotechnology platform to bring nutrition without compromise to consumers across the globe.
