Onego Bio Celebrates 1-Year Anniversary
Can you believe it’s already been a year? Last February, our company’s founders, Maija Itkonen and Christopher Landowski, joined forces to launch Onego Bio and announce to the world that they had cracked the code to producing egg white protein without chickens.
We’re proud to share that the world took notice! Onego Bio was recognized in numerous press features around the globe, including Sifted by The Financial Times, Food Dive, Food Navigator, Green Queen, and Food Matters, to name a few. From industry events and panel discussions to award recognition and press opportunities, we’ve been busy sharing our story and introducing Bioalbumen® to the world, and we are truly grateful to see the positive response.
We made great progress in our award-winning precision fermentation technology and set up capabilities to produce animal-free egg white through partnerships and by setting up our own molecular bio lab. Our talented team of gamechangers grew to 19 and next we continue to build our team and relationships with key global partners that drive our mission forward and speed us towards launching our first product, Bioalbumen®.
Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to these past 12 months:
February 2022: Onego Bio raised EUR 10 million seed funding from Agronomics and Maki VC to commercialize a breakthrough technology to produce animal-free egg white protein
March 2022: Maija was a speaker at the Agrarian Revolution Panel Discussion at the Master Investor Show in the UK
May 2022: Onego Bio was selected as the 2022 Innovation Showcase Winner at the Food Innovation and Investment Summit in San Francisco
May 2022: Maija moderated the panel “Scaling to meet accelerated demand for Alternative Proteins” at the Food Innovation and Investment Summit in San Francisco
June 2022: Onego Bio was selected as a Sustainability Pioneer finalist in the 2022 Sustainable Food Awardsand finalist in The Foodies FoodDrinkEurope’s EU SME Sustainability Awards 2022 in two categories (Healthier Living Award + Next-Gen Innovator Award)
June 2022: Onego Bio was selected as winner of the FoodTech Innovation of the Year award in the annual AgTech Breakthrough Awards
July 2022: Onego Bio was selected as one of the 25 Science Start-Up Breakthrough of the Year 2022 Winners at Falling Walls Venture
August 2022: Onego Bio’s own molecular bio lab was setup
September 2022: Onego Bio was awarded a grant of EUR 4.5 million for research and development work from Business Finland
September: Onego® trademark was registered in EU
September 2022: Maija was a co-panelist at Future Food Tech in London
September 2022: Onego Bio partnered with Perfect Day’s enterprise biology business nth Bio accelerate the market entry and scaling of Bioalbumen®
October 2022: Maija joined a panel discussion at Sifted Summit in London about creating science-based spin-offs
October 2022: Onego Bio was awarded second place for Most Innovative Startup at Nordic Cleantech Open 2022 organized by Cleantech Scandinavia.
November: Chris was a speaker at the Falling Walls Science Summit in Berlin
November 2022: During SLUSH 2022, Christopher Landowski gave a keynote presentation “Convergence of Biotech and Foodtech” and Maija spoke at the Slush Startup Studio Stage and at the VTT Launchpad Booth
December 2022: Onego Bio selected finalist for Most Innovative Processing Technology in the Fi Global Startup Innovation Challenge and the team joined Food Ingredients Europe in Paris
December: Bioalbumen® trademark was registered in EU
January 2023: Maija was selected as a speaking finalist at the Vegan Women Summit 2023 in NYC
January 2023: Onego Bio was selected as one of the Deep Tech Pioneers by Hello Tomorrow
And we’re delighted to share that this is just the beginning! We have a lot of exciting things planned for the coming year that we can’t wait to tell you about, so be sure to give us a follow on Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter!
Thank you for your partnership, support, and sharing our story this first year!