Swiss-Italian startup Ferm Labs raises €3 million to expand fermentation-based ingredient platform
Zug-based biotech startup Ferm Labs has secured €3 million to scale its bioprocessing platform that produces clean-label flavour ingredients for the food industry. The round was led by CDP Venture Capital.
Ferm Labs, a startup headquartered in Zug, Switzerland, has raised €3 million to scale its bioprocessing platform for the global clean-label ingredient market. The funding round was led by CDP Venture Capital through its Green Transition Fund, backed by NextGenerationEU, with participation from Fund F, Redstone (alongside Euregio+ and Alpine VC), and food company Loacker.
Founded in 2025 by entrepreneurs Stephanie Lüpold (CEO) and Mattia Baroni (CTO), Ferm Labs develops B2B flavour systems designed to replicate the full sensory qualities of natural ingredients while cutting production costs.
How the technology works
According to the company, industrial food producers have traditionally had to choose between cheap synthetic additives and costlier, slower-to-produce natural ingredients. Ferm Labs says its platform removes this trade-off by directing non-GMO microbes through customised processing parameters, cutting fermentation time from weeks to just hours. The system converts low-value byproducts into concentrated kokumi peptide profiles, resulting in stable flavour pastes and powders free of E-numbers, added fats, or excess sodium.
The company's flagship product, Kokumesan, targets the industrial cheese flavouring market in the US and Europe, which it values at €68 billion. Made from liquid whey, a dairy byproduct, Kokumesan is said to replicate the taste of aged cheese. Ferm Labs states the product allows manufacturers to reduce the amount of costly raw cheese used in formulations from 20% to under 1%, without affecting taste, while also improving processability by preventing fat and sodium buildup that can clog production equipment.
Ferm Labs is headquartered in Zug, with its manufacturing operations based in Bolzano, Italy. The company plans to use the new funding to expand production capacity in South Tyrol, grow its European sales team, and increase research and development staff to develop additional product lines.
