Deep Branch, an agritech company based in Nottingham, secured €8 million (around £6.8 million) in Series A funding to turn industrial carbon dioxide into single-cell protein for sustainable animal feed. By deploying precision gas fermentation, the venture replaces destructive soy farming and marine-dredged fishmeal with a circular, low-carbon feed ingredient. This landmark investment illustrates how UK deeptech ventures move from laboratory proof-of-concept to pilot-scale manufacturing by combining institutional venture capital, corporate partnerships, and early-stage angel investment.
The Groundbreaking Story: How Deep Branch Secures €8M to Revolutionize Sustainable Animal Feed in the UK
What happens when heavy industrial emissions collide with biological engineering? You get an entirely new way to feed livestock without cutting down a single rainforest tree. Nottingham biotech Deep Branch made global headlines by capturing waste carbon dioxide directly from factory flues and feeding it to microbes to produce high-grade animal protein. When Deep Branch Secures €8M to Revolutionize Sustainable Animal Feed in the UK, it offers a masterclass in how British hardware and biology startups can attract top-tier capital to solve pressing global supply chain risks. If you are an active investor hunting for ground-floor opportunities across low-carbon infrastructure and synthetic biology, you can Discover startup opportunities and back the next generation of industrial innovators early.
Traditional livestock and aquaculture farming have painted themselves into a tight ecological corner. Modern commercial feed relies heavily on imported South American soy and wild-caught pelagic fishmeal. Both inputs suffer from extreme climate vulnerability, price shocks, and mounting regulatory scrutiny around supply chain deforestation. By creating a scalable alternative built on industrial gas fermentation, Deep Branch proved that capital-intensive agritech can build an airtight commercial investment thesis. For entrepreneurs and angel investors across the UK, this funding milestone provides a clear roadmap for scaling complex physical innovations from local university labs to commercial demonstration plants.
How Does Deep Branch Turn Industrial Waste Gas into Animal Protein?
How can a startup turn exhaust smoke into salmon pellets? The science relies on a process called precision gas fermentation. Deep Branch does not rely on fertile soil, sunlight, or vast marine trawlers. Instead, the company operates high-tech bioreactors populated by proprietary non-genetically modified microbes.
Here is how the transformation works in practice:
- Industrial Carbon Capture: Carbon dioxide is scrubbed and captured directly from manufacturing hubs and chemical processing facilities, preventing greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere.
- Bioreactor Gas Fermentation: The captured carbon dioxide is piped into sealed fermentation vessels alongside green hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen acts as an energy source, replacing the role of sunlight in conventional photosynthesis.
- Rapid Microbial Growth: Proprietary single-cell microbes consume the gas blend and essential mineral nutrients. They multiply rapidly in continuous culture, doubling their mass in hours rather than months.
- Harvesting and Refining: The microbial biomass is harvested, dried, and pasteurised into a fine, nutrient-dense ingredient branded as “Proton”.
- Finished Single-Cell Protein: Proton contains roughly 70 percent crude protein, complete with balanced amino acid profiles, prebiotics, and essential trace nutrients.
Because the entire process takes place in vertical steel tanks, it requires a tiny fraction of the land used by traditional soy plantations. It recycles process water in continuous closed loops, delivering a sustainable protein supply that functions regardless of season, weather, or local soil degradation.
Why Sustainable Animal Feed Is an Urgent Priority for the UK
To understand why institutional venture funds backed Deep Branch, you have to look at the severe structural flaws in modern agricultural supply chains. Europe imports the vast majority of its high-protein feed components. That reliance leaves British farming exposed to massive external shocks.
The Ecological Damage of Soy and Fishmeal
Commercial livestock feeds depend on monoculture soy farming, which remains a leading driver of deforestation across the Amazon and Cerrado basins. Clearing these ancient biomes releases immense quantities of sequestered carbon and destroys local biodiversity. At the same time, industrial aquaculture consumes millions of tonnes of wild forage fish, disrupting marine food webs and depleting wild fisheries. Supermarkets and food multinationals now face strict consumer and regulatory pressure to eliminate deforestation and overfishing from their tier-one supply chains.
Fragile Commodity Chains and Sovereign Food Security
Geopolitical conflict, shipping disruptions, export bans, and severe droughts frequently send soy and grain prices through the roof. For UK poultry, swine, and salmon farmers, feed costs represent between 50 and 70 percent of total operational overheads. When international markets spike, domestic farmers see their profit margins evaporate. Domestic gas fermentation facilities decouple national protein production from foreign commodity markets, strengthening British food resilience against global trade shocks.
Inside the €8 Million Funding Consortium: Who Backed the Deal?
Deep Branch’s €8 million Series A round was not simply a collection of venture cheques. It was an intentional consortium designed to bridge technical validation with enterprise procurement.
The investment was co-led by Novo Holdings, the life science investment powerhouse, and DSM Venturing, the venture arm of Dutch health and nutrition giant Royal DSM. They were joined by TotalEnergies Ventures and the Barclays Sustainable Impact Capital programme.
Crucially, Deep Branch paired equity investors with commercial off-takers. The startup partnered with BioMar, a global leader in aquaculture feed, and AB Agri, an international agricultural feed producer. These industry partners conducted feeding trials on salmon and poultry to prove that animals fed with Proton grew just as well as those fed traditional diets. When building high-capex deeptech, getting industrial end-users on your team before you construct your factory is the fastest way to derisk venture investment.
| Production Metric | Gas Fermentation (Deep Branch) | Insect Protein Farming | Conventional Soy Farming |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arable Land Required | Negligible (indoor vessels) | Low (vertical warehouse stacks) | Extremely High (vast acreage) |
| Freshwater Consumption | Ultra-low (closed-loop recycling) | Low | High (intensive crop irrigation) |
| Supply Chain Stability | Continuous year-round yield | Continuous batch cycles | Dependent on weather and seasons |
| Primary Inputs | Industrial CO2 and Green Hydrogen | Organic food waste streams | Fertilisers, topsoil, and rainfall |
| Carbon Profile | Net-negative or minimal | Low to neutral | High (driven by land conversion) |
What Hard Roadblocks Do Deeptech Startups Face When Scaling?
Operating a 10-litre glass bioreactor in an academic lab is straightforward. Keeping a 50,000-litre industrial fermentation tower running continuously without contamination is an immense engineering challenge. Agritech founders building physical biological systems face several hurdles before reaching profitability.
The Cost of Physical Infrastructure (Capex)
Software companies can launch an app with a laptop and a cloud server. Deeptech companies cannot fake physical scale. Bioreactors, gas compressors, pipework, and clean-in-place systems require millions of pounds in hard capital expenditure. If founders rely solely on venture capital for factory construction, they risk giving away large chunks of their company early on. Navigating this stage requires balancing venture equity with asset-backed debt and non-dilutive government grants.
Founders working through complex seed-stage operational hurdles can explore Startup funding for entrepreneurs to discover practical funding routes and raise equity without giving away excess control.
Hydrogen Availability and Green Energy Costs
Gas fermentation relies on hydrogen gas to feed the microbes. If that hydrogen comes from fossil fuels (grey hydrogen), the environmental benefits disappear. To remain truly low-carbon, plants must use green hydrogen generated via water electrolysis powered by renewable electricity. Until green hydrogen infrastructure expands nationwide, deeptech ventures face variable utility tariffs that complicate their unit economics.
Navigating Novel Food Safety Regulations
Single-cell proteins destined for animal consumption must secure formal approval from safety authorities, including the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Founders must demonstrate strict chemical purity, show consistent nutritional compositions across production runs, and prove the complete absence of heavy metals or biological toxins. Preparing these regulatory dossiers takes years of careful feeding trials and meticulous lab documentation.
Strategic Lessons for UK Cleantech and Agritech Founders
Deep Branch’s successful funding milestone provides clear takeaways for early-stage entrepreneurs building complex science and engineering companies in the UK:
- Focus on Unit Economics, Not Just Sustainability: Investors rarely back companies purely because they are green. Deep Branch succeeded because it solved an economic vulnerability, protecting feed manufacturers against volatile commodity markets and looming carbon taxes.
- Involve Industrial Off-Takers Early: Bringing commercial feed giants into product trials eliminated market risk. Having established buyers waiting for commercial batches made institutional investors much more confident deploying capital.
- Stack Grants Underneath Private Equity: Deep Branch leveraged non-dilutive funding from Innovate UK and the EU Horizon 2020 programme. Using government grants to fund initial bench testing lets founders retain meaningful equity before their seed and Series A rounds.
- Build an Ironclad Data Room: In deep science, investors conduct rigorous technical due diligence. Founders must present verified life cycle assessments, gas conversion efficiency metrics, and formal freedom-to-operate patent analyses.
If you are structuring your business model for deeptech or climate innovation, you can read our guide on structuring startup equity on Oriel IPO to prepare your corporate registry for institutional investors.
How UK Tax Incentives Derisk Early-Stage Cleantech Investing
Institutional Series A investors like Novo Holdings rarely write cheques for untested lab science. Before a deeptech startup is ready for a multi-million-pound institutional round, it almost always depends on private angel investors. To offset the high biological and technical risks of early-stage science, the UK government offers two generous venture tax relief schemes: the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS).
The Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS)
SEIS targets early-stage businesses raising their first rounds of private capital. For individual investors, the scheme provides:
- 50% Upfront Income Tax Relief: An investor committing £50,000 can deduct £25,000 directly from their income tax liability for the current or previous tax year.
- Capital Gains Exemption: Any profits realised on the sale of qualifying shares held for at least three years are 100 percent free from Capital Gains Tax (CGT).
- Loss Relief Protection: If a high-risk biotechnology experiment fails, investors can offset the net loss against their income tax or capital gains, reducing the capital at risk to around 27.5p per pound invested for top-rate taxpayers.
To see how founders and investors can structure these tax reliefs effectively, you can Learn about SEIS and review the basic HMRC qualification rules.
The Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS)
As businesses move from prototype testing toward commercial pilots, capital demands increase rapidly. EIS allows companies to raise up to £5 million per year (£12 million over their lifetime, or up to £20 million for qualifying Knowledge-Intensive Companies). Key investor reliefs include:
- 30% Upfront Income Tax Relief: Offsets your annual UK income tax bill.
- Capital Gains Deferral: Investors can defer capital gains realised on other asset sales by reinvesting those gains into qualifying EIS shares.
- Inheritance Tax Exemption: EIS shares generally qualify for Business Relief after being held for two years, making them exempt from UK Inheritance Tax.
Before allocating private capital toward innovative UK businesses, investors should take time to Learn about EIS and understand holding periods, relief clawbacks, and portfolio risk management.
For a deeper look into how angel investors evaluate these opportunities, take a look at our analysis of how UK angel investors assess early-stage startups.
The Role of Professional Advisers in Managing SEIS and EIS Compliance
Tax-efficient fundraising is not just about finding investors; it requires meticulous legal and accounting compliance. HMRC maintains strict criteria regarding corporate structure, trade qualification, and how capital can be deployed. A single administrative error can disqualify a business, stripping investors of valuable tax reliefs.
Accountants, solicitors, and financial advisers play a vital role in:
- Securing HMRC Advance Assurance: Submitting a formal application to HMRC to confirm that the company and its trade qualify for SEIS or EIS before raising capital.
- Maintaining Eligible Share Classes: Ensuring that shares issued to investors are ordinary, non-redeemable shares carrying no preferential rights to company assets.
- Timely Form Processing: Filing form SEIS1 or EIS1 promptly after deployment so investors receive their compliance certificates (SEIS3/EIS3) without delay.
Accountants and wealth managers supporting early-stage clients can discover dedicated SEIS EIS support for accountants to streamline compliance workflows and support client fundraising.
To see how professional guidance protects early ventures during capital events, read our breakdown on supporting founder success with advisers.
Backing Pioneer Ventures: The Oriel Investment Marketplace
Early-stage science founders often waste months pitching generalist angel networks that do not understand long-horizon biotechnology. Traditional fundraising platforms often take large percentage success fees, skimming capital away from essential laboratory equipment, patent filings, and engineering staff.
This is why we built the Oriel Investment Marketplace. Operated by Oriel Services Limited, the platform connects early-stage founders with angel investors, family offices, and professional advisers across the UK. By operating on a straightforward subscription model rather than charging a percentage success commission, the platform ensures that 100 percent of raised capital remains inside the business to fund technical development.
Alongside direct introductions, Oriel IPO provides comprehensive Educational Tools. These tools help founders navigate SEIS and EIS rules, run equity dilution calculations, and prepare for investor due diligence. By combining structured educational resources with direct, commission-free investor discovery, Oriel IPO helps forward-thinking founders secure the backing they need to build sustainable industrial infrastructure.
The Commercial Outlook for Alternative Animal Feed in the UK
The funding round secured by Deep Branch proves that sustainable agriculture is moving away from experimental research into commercial reality. With regulatory scrutiny tightening around international supply chains and carbon emissions, high-carbon feeds are quickly becoming a commercial liability for European food producers.
Founders who can engineer reliable, low-carbon feed alternatives stand to capture substantial market share across a multi-billion-pound global market. For private angel investors, backing these hardware and biology ventures using the tax protections of SEIS and EIS offers a rare combination: meaningful real-world impact, significant downside tax protection, and exceptional long-term growth potential.
Whether you are a scientist ready to commercialise a clean breakthrough or an investor seeking tax-efficient private equity opportunities, the UK ecosystem offers the tools you need to succeed. Get started today: Discover startup opportunities and help fund the sustainable breakthroughs of tomorrow.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Deep Branch’s single-cell protein product?
Deep Branch develops “Proton”, a high-protein feed ingredient produced via microbial gas fermentation. It is designed to replace conventional soy and fishmeal in diets for farmed salmon, poultry, and pigs.
How does gas fermentation differ from insect farming?
While insect farming feeds organic food waste to larvae in vertical trays, gas fermentation uses proprietary single-cell microbes housed in closed bioreactors. These microbes consume industrial carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and mineral nutrients, providing a continuous, weather-independent protein yield with minimal land requirements.
What makes a deeptech company qualify as a Knowledge-Intensive Company (KIC) under EIS?
To achieve Knowledge-Intensive Company status with HMRC, a startup must meet specific research and development expenditure thresholds and either possess intellectual property created from that research or employ a minimum percentage of skilled research staff with relevant postgraduate degrees. KIC status raises the annual EIS fundraising limit to £10 million (up to £20 million lifetime).
What are the main risks of angel investing in early-stage agritech?
Agritech investments carry significant operational hurdles, including high capital expenditure for pilot plants, engineering bottlenecks during industrial scale-up, extended regulatory review timelines, and volatility in wholesale energy prices. Angel investors frequently use the UK’s SEIS and EIS tax relief frameworks to offset these financial and technological risks.
