Lithuanian startup Cogastro, which developed the world’s first software for the monitoring and management of an insect farm, has secured EUR 500,000 seed funding.
The funding was granted to the company by a syndicate formed by the venture capital fund CoInvest Capital and members of the Lithuanian Business Angels network (LitBAN).
“The company’s sales have grown 4 times since the beginning of this year, with the insect growing market expanding rapidly, so we also need to grow to keep up with the increasing competition. We will use the investment we have received to further develop the insect farm management software, expand the professional team and try the markets of the United States of America and Asia,“ said the head of Cogastro Mantė Šidlauskaitė.
Ms. Šidlauskaitė claims professionals from the USA, Belgium, and France with extensive experience in the field of insect cultivation and the creation and management of their farms should soon join the startup team.
“The founders of the company have shown on several occasions that they are particularly ambitious and confident in their product, as evidenced by their performance results. We are pleased that they have managed to discover a viable niche of activity – many insect-growing farms still analyse data manually, while Cogastro provides such farms with a smart system that significantly increases productivity,” commented out the director of CoInvest Capital Viktorija Vaitkevičienė.
“The attention of business angels has been attracted by a complex of technical and sales competencies complementary to each other by members of the Cogastro team, service contracts have been signed over several years with target customers operating on five continents around the world, which signaled good market conformity of the start-up product and an appropriate focus on maintaining and expanding customer relationships,” pointed out the head of the business angels syndicate Ph.D. Audrius Dzikevičius.
In June this year, Cogastro won the Startup Pitch Battle competition, held during the international Lithuanian startup event “Startup Fair: Recharge 2021”.
