Cocoa upcycling startup Greencovery raises €1M round

Greencovery, a Wageningen-based food tech startup, has raised €1 million to push its cocoa upcycling technology into industrial-scale production. The round was backed by regional development agency ROM InWest, existing shareholder Brightlands Venture Partners, and a private investor.

The company has already validated its first commercial batches with key clients and is now scaling up operations with a strategic partner, working toward a production capacity of 1,000 tons.

From cocoa waste to functional ingredients

Greencovery's core technology is a mild separation process that extracts valuable, low-carbon-footprint ingredients from food industry side streams — material that would otherwise be discarded or downcycled into low-value uses. The company says the approach uses less energy and water than conventional separation techniques, while preserving the functionality, taste and microbial stability of the ingredients it recovers.

With the new funding, Greencovery will expand production of three ingredients derived from cocoa side streams: cocoa fiber, cocoa extract and cocoa soluble fiber. These give food manufacturers a buffer against volatile global cocoa prices, while helping them meet growing demand for clean-label products, natural flavors and reduced sugar content.

A push for circular food systems

The bet is also a regional one. Zaandam has been a European food-processing hub for four centuries and remains a hub of the global cocoa trade; Greencovery is aiming to add a circular layer to that legacy by refining local side streams into higher-value ingredients rather than exporting them for disposal or low-value processing. Founder and Managing Director Carlos Cabrera noted that the company has already proven its separation technology across coffee, oil press cakes and nuts, but that cocoa is where it is now reaching commercial scale. He pointed out that North Holland alone generates more than 350,000 tons of food-grade side streams every year, and said bringing ROM InWest into the round connects the company directly to the region's industrial network.

Investors framed the deal as part of a broader push toward circular food systems. ROM InWest's Bas Kalshoven said turning side streams into functional ingredients, rather than incinerating or downcycling them, supports that shift, and called the deployment of the technology with an industrial partner in North Holland a strong example of regional collaboration. Ad van Vugt, an early Greencovery investor and initiator of the Zaan Food Makers network, said the region has the industrial base and raw materials to lead in circular food processing.

Eyeing a larger follow-on round

The €1 million round is only the first step. Greencovery is now closing an additional €3 million tranche, with commitments already secured from a mix of existing and new investors, to fund full-scale commercial manufacturing and supply ingredients at volume. Marcel Zijp of Brightlands Venture Partners, which supported the company through its early technology development, said ROM InWest's involvement arrives at a key moment in Greencovery's shift toward industrial deployment.

Taken together, the funding marks Greencovery's transition from a technology-validation stage to full commercial operation — and a bet that Europe's cocoa-processing heartland has a role to play in a more circular food industry.