The archive · Climate & Energy · Strategic decision · 2011–2025
Ynsect's insect-protein bet: $425M raised, world's largest bug farm, 2025 liquidation
Ynsect bet mealworm protein could replace fishmeal at industrial scale; after ~$580M raised and a giant Amiens farm, a French court liquidated it in Dec 2025.
Ynsect (Ÿnsect)
What the business is
Industrial insect farming: automated vertical farms raise mealworms and turn them into protein for fish and animal feed plus fertilizer, with pet food and human food as later markets.
Starting capital：$372M Series C in equity and debt (2020); ~$580M raised 2011–2025, including €148M in public subsidies per French finance ministry data.
How it started
Founded in 2011 by Antoine Hubert and Alexis Angot, Ynsect built a pilot mealworm farm in Dole, France, betting that aquaculture's surging protein demand would outgrow wild-caught fishmeal. In October 2020 it closed a record $372M Series C — backed by Astanor, Upfront, and Robert Downey Jr.'s Footprint Coalition — to build the world's largest insect farm near Amiens.
What happened
The Amiens farm opened in early 2022 and started protein production in summer 2024. Revenue stayed tiny — €5.8M in 2023 against roughly €104M in liabilities — and Ynsect said it needed about €130M more to reach a €131M-revenue 2028 plan. A safeguard filing in September 2024, a January 2025 tender for investors, and conversion to judicial recovery in March 2025 all failed to secure a buyer.
How it ended up
On 1 December 2025 the Évry commercial court ordered judicial liquidation after Ynsect could not fund a continuation plan. The Dole site found a partial buyer (biosolutions maker Kepréa), while the Amiens mega-farm closed and about 43 remaining employees faced redundancy.
Background
Ynsect was the flagship of Europe's insect-farming boom: automated vertical farms that raised mealworms and turned them into protein for fish feed and fertilizer. Its bet was that aquaculture's exploding demand — nearly half of all fish now comes from farms — would let industrially produced insect protein replace wild-caught fishmeal, then move upmarket into pet food and human food.
Founded in 2011 by Antoine Hubert and Alexis Angot, the startup raised a then-record $372M Series C in October 2020, with TechCrunch calling it the maker of 'the world's most expensive bug farm.' The money built a giant plant near Amiens, France, which opened in 2022 and began protein production in summer 2024. Total funding reached roughly $580M, including around €148M of public subsidies.
The economics never caught up. Ynsect reported €5.8M revenue in 2023 against about €104M in liabilities, and said it needed another ~€130M to fund a plan targeting €131M revenue by 2028. After a safeguard filing in September 2024, a failed tender for investors in January 2025, and judicial recovery from March 2025, the Évry commercial court ordered liquidation on 1 December 2025. Only the Dole pilot site found a partial buyer, and the Amiens mega-farm was shut.
What has to be true
- The demand signal was real — aquaculture protein use was growing fast — but Ynsect bet customers would pay industrial prices for insect protein before the cost curve came down.
- It chose a scale-first strategy: a capital-intensive, fully automated farm presumed unit costs would fall once built, leaving no room for delay or funding gaps.
- Revenue stayed minuscule (€5.8M in 2023) while liabilities and headcount grew, so each rescue round needed ever-larger new capital at the worst moment of the climate-tech funding slump.
- Cheaper conventional proteins — soy and fishmeal — undercut insect meal exactly when the European insect-protein market was still tiny, making the 'build big, then price low' plan untenable.
What can be applied
Scale-first industrial bets only pay off if unit costs fall before funding runs out: Ynsect built the farm, but insect protein never beat cheaper soy and fishmeal.
Aftermath
As of September 2026 Ynsect is in liquidation: the Évry court's 1 December 2025 ruling ended operations, roughly 43 remaining employees were made redundant, and only the Dole site was partially taken over by biosolutions maker Kepréa. The empty Amiens mega-farm is being redeveloped by regional authorities, and the collapse continues to be debated in French media and politics because of the €148M of public money involved.
Sources
- Ÿnsect, the makers of the world's most expensive bug farm, raises another $224 million
- Breaking: Ÿnsect seeks to enter judicial recovery procedure after recovery plan fails
- Ynsect placé en liquidation judiciaire : la fin d'une initiative industrielle et technologique d'envergure
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