The Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) led a EUR 250 mn series D investment round for Paris-based biotech company Innovafeed, the sovereign wealth fund announced on Tuesday. Innovafeed houses the world’s largest vertical insect farm in France to produce insect-based protein.

Who else was involved? The round was co-led by several investors: Future French Champions, a joint venture between QIA and investment bank Bpi France, Singapore-based PE fund ABC Impact, capital firm Grow Forward, and IDIA Capital Investment. Previous investors global food corporations Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM) and Cargill also joined the mix along with climate-focused investor Creadev and Singapore-owned Temasek.

What exactly does Innovafeed do? It basically tries to replace animal feed with the protein from insects instead of actual animals and plants. The company so far has two insect production farms in France. The protein is then used as nutrition alternatives for plants, poultry, swine, fish and pets.

What does this have to do with climate? Although regenerative agriculture can be carbon negative (taking more out of the environment than it emits), much of the large-scale industrial agriculture that has damaging effects on the environment is designed to produce animal feed. Innovafeed says what it does “streamlines” food production to minimize waste: oil is extracted from insects for poultry and swine nutrition, insect protein nourishes fish, and insect manure makes organic fertilizer.

The investment round will be used for expansion, product development and opening new sites. Innovafeed wants to increase its production capacity and expand its Nesle site in the north of France. It’s also looking to expand into the US with the construction of a new production plant in Illinois and further develop its R&D efforts. Since launching in 2016, Innovafeed secured a total of EUR 200 mn in funding.

This isn’t QIA’s first startup or climate investment In 2020, the fund announced it would no longer deploy new investment in hydrocarbons, and as of 2021, almost 50% of the infrastructure power generation projects in its portfolio are “zero-emission investments”, according to The Peninsula Qatar. On the startup side of things, QIA led a USD 1 bn investment round in German execution management firm Celonis last month, according to a company press release.