Vietnam-focused private equity firm Mekong Capital has invested $25 million into Belgium biotech company Entobel, while Dragon Capital, one of Vietnam’s leading investment firms, joined with $5 million.
Mekong Capital made the latest investment through its $246 million Mekong Enterprise Fund IV. The fund was set up in January 2021 to continue the firm's strategy of focusing on growth-equity investments in companies in Vietnam.
"We are proud to partner with Mekong Capital and Dragon Capital to build a world-class plant before replicating the model globally. We are convinced our capital efficient and robust technology is the right approach to massive scaling up," Gaetan Crielaard and Alexandre de Caters, co-founders of Entobel, stated in a release.
"With our growing blue-chip customer base as well as world-class industrial partnerships for breakthrough R&D activities including new product developments, we ensure our market relevance and competitiveness in the long run".
Sjoerd Zwinkels, Mekong Capital’s deal leader for Entobel, said the company is one of the world's largest insect protein production companies, starting from a small farm in the Mekong Delta to a large industrial facility in Dong Nai province. "They have proven that insect-derived ingredients can be produced on an industrial scale with high quality and cost-effectiveness compared to fishmeal."
Headquartered in Singapore, Entobel is specialized in insect-derived feed protein with production activities based in Vietnam since 2013, providing ingredients for various industries, including the animal feed, pet food, and fertilizer industry. Its current three main products are insect meal, insect oil, and organic fertilizer.
In early 2019, Entobel built its commercial-scale insect protein factory in Dong Nai which neighbors Ho Chi Minh City, with an annual capacity of 1,000 tons. The Belgium firm’s next plant will be operational by 2023.
One of the reasons the new protein supplier chose Vietnam as its manufacturing base is the location can give it access to an estimated 70 million tons of agricultural by-products that the Southeast Asian country turns out each year.
Entobel has so far done extensive R&D to improve technology to convert food by-products to insect protein on a large scale with capital-efficient technology. Having achieved these technological breakthroughs, the company is now focusing on scaling up its production.