Portfolio overview

NoPalm Ingredients

NoPalm Ingredients is on a mission to deliver local, circular, and sustainable oils as alternatives to palm oil. With the power of oil-producing yeasts, they tackle the environmental threat of palm oil expansion. NoPalm’s approach avoids further palm driven pressure on rainforests with 99% less land use, while decarbonising the supply chain with 90% fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

Revolutionizing the palm oil industry

Palm oil, dubbed the “wonder oil” for its versatility, is the most consumed vegetable oil worldwide. With an annual production of approximately 80 million tonnes, palm oil is found in over 50% of supermarket products from everyday items like shampoo and toothpaste to surprising ones like instant noodles and even ice cream.

Unfortunately it’s incredible popularity has come at huge environmental cost, as 22 million hectares of virgin rainforest (more than 5 times the size of the Netherlands) have been cleared to make way for new palm plantations since 1990. Meanwhile, ongoing palm driven deforestation to serve accelerating demand contributes to 1.4% of global CO2 emissions every year and threatens 40% of endangered species. We need a new “wonder oil” and fast.

For NoPalm we track the impact targets:

➡️: Total land use change avoided (Km2)
➡️: Technology milestone: Production Capacity
➡️: Technology milestone: Relative cost

SDG Alignment

Innovative Fermentation Technology

NoPalm Ingredients uses a proprietary fermentation-based technology to convert agrifood offcuts into a low-emission palm oil alternative.

Founded in 2021 by Lars Langhout (CEO, ex Booz/Strategy&) and Professor Jeroen Hugenholtz (CTO, ex Wageningen University), NoPalm Ingredients has leveraged extensive research into yeasts to develop their proprietary process for converting low value agrifood feedstocks like potato peels into oils. The main output matches palm oil in performance and taste, while a rich protein byproduct can be used as an ingredient for foods.

Recent Momentum

NoPalm Ingredients has recently drawn significant attention in the sustainable food-tech space. In 2024, the company secured multi-million funding to scale its operations and advance towards commercial production, underlining strong investor confidence in its breakthrough technology. The company also announced new partnerships with major food and cosmetics players eager to decarbonise their supply chains and replace palm oil with sustainable alternatives. These milestones position NoPalm as one of the most promising scale-ups tackling one of the most urgent climate and biodiversity challenges of our time.

We believe NoPalm Ingredients is crucial in reducing pressure on our planetary boundaries. Our investment aims to support NoPalm in demonstrating they can scale their impressive results to large-scale production and secure long-term contracts with their pipeline of engaged customers.