From bio-based pheromones that make pest control cheaper and cleaner, to novel ingredients that reduce pressure on tropical ecosystems, a new wave of AgriFood startups is proving that climate resilience and efficiency go hand in hand. Backed by Rockstart’s AgriFood Fund II, startups PheroSyn, Endless, and Mozaic.Earth are turning environmental challenges into viable business models; we spoke to them directly to gather how smarter inputs, circular processes, and biodiversity visibility can drive both resilience and return.
Pheromones over pesticides: How Pherosyn is rewiring pest control for a biodiversity-rich future
PheroSyn is redefining pest control by replacing broad-spectrum pesticides with highly targeted insect pheromones—chemical signals that interfere with pest behaviour without harming beneficial insects or surrounding ecosystems. Because pheromones are species-specific and do not trigger resistance in pest populations, they offer an effective way to protect crops while reducing soil and water contamination, supporting biodiversity, and lowering the health risks associated with chemical inputs. When we talked to the PheroSyn team, CEO Mary Ellis stressed the environmental urgency of the shift, noting that “pheromones will play a huge role in reversing biodiversity loss, because pesticides have heavily impacted the resilience of soils and farming.” The team highlighted that adoption varies widely: greenhouse growers readily integrate sustainable tools, while large-acre farmers tend to remain attached to long-established spraying practices. PheroSyn is essentially asking farmers to change their behaviour, and that transition depends heavily on context, awareness, application methods and local agricultural norms.
Scaling production presents its own challenges. The company relies on green chemistry principles, recyclable intermediates, renewable feedstocks, and low-impact processes, which require careful adaptation as they move from small-scale synthesis to large industrial volumes. While awareness of pheromone-based control ranges from highly informed to virtually nonexistent, the team sees Europe as especially receptive to sustainable innovation. Against the backdrop of a global biodiversity decline of up to 70% within a single lifetime, PheroSyn envisions a future where pest-free agriculture and ecological resilience go hand in hand, and regards its role in the agri-food ecosystem as both promising and profoundly necessary.
Why nature data matters: How Mozaic is making it accessible
When we talked to the team at Mozaic, they explained how their technology transforms ecological complexity into something both measurable and actionable for businesses. Today, companies face rising risks from degrading ecosystems—whether around their own operations or deep within their supply chains. Existing tools fall short: satellite images lack the detail needed to be decision-useful at site-level, while consultant-led ecological surveys are slow and expensive. Mozaic positions itself in the middle ground, enabling large-scale, standardized site-level ecological monitoring using something as simple as a smartphone. Their AI and computer-vision models analyse ground images, integrate remote sensing data, and deliver site-specific indicators that businesses can compare across entire portfolios—from thousands of cocoa farms to large agricultural landscapes. This means companies can finally benchmark nature-related risks and build actionable playbooks that scale.
Nature, as Sylvain Vaquer, CEO of Mozaic, says is no longer a “nice-to-have” but a core resilience factor. Mozaic’s work with Nestlé illustrates how nature-related risks, from monoculture-driven soil instability to drought, flooding, and pollination loss, directly threaten production. Nestlé is investing millions into agroforestry transitions, but until now lacked a way to monitor ecological improvements across vast sourcing regions. Mozaic fills that gap, turning every dollar of investment into measurable data on ecosystem health. Looking ahead, the team argues that nature risks differ from climate risks in one fundamental way: they’re immediate and tangible. Wildfires, floods, yield losses, and soil collapse already disrupt operations, yet businesses lack adequate tools to manage these threats. Mozaic sees this moment as critical, not just for conservation, but for operational risk management. Their mission is to reframe biodiversity as essential infrastructure for the global economy and to equip companies with the tools needed to protect it.
Reinventing cocoa: Endless’s Mission to reinvent industry
Endless’ journey began in the hospitality world, where upcycling citrus skins, vegetable peels, and coffee grounds shaped their creative approach to food systems. Their interest eventually turned toward chocolate—an ingredient that cannot grow in the Nordics and whose global industry is riddled with long-standing problems. Today’s cocoa supply is increasingly unstable due to rising temperatures, droughts, floods, deforestation, and heavy pesticide use in major growing regions like West Africa. This has caused yields to drop by 30% year over year, triggering extreme price volatility and pushing producers toward unsustainable practices. As Maximillian Daniel Bogenmann, CEO & Co-Founder at Endless, told us, “consumers will not buy just because of sustainability—it also needs to have flavour, texture, and a price that really makes sense.” He added that when it comes to alternative chocolate, “awareness about alternative products is still developing” as this market is still in its early stages. Endless sees an opportunity to address these inefficiencies by developing a cocoa alternative with a stable supply, predictable pricing, and a far smaller carbon footprint.
Max explains how large food companies are now more open to alternatives, provided they are natural, affordable, and deliver on taste, especially as corporations move toward palm-oil-free and ESG-aligned sourcing. Endless differentiates itself through superior flavour and texture that closely replicates chocolate, combined with a short, clean, upcycled ingredient list and organic production. Their ambitions are large-scale: replacing low-quality, palm-oil-heavy chocolate in mass-market products, from cereals to ice cream to baked goods, while slowly working toward adoption even in more premium chocolate segments. For now, the strongest demand comes from manufacturers seeking stable pricing, supply security, and sustainable ingredients for chocolate-containing products where chocolate is not the primary focus.
Key takeaways
Across PheroSyn, Endless, and Mozaic.Earth, a clear pattern emerges: solving for climate resilience is rapidly becoming a competitive advantage in the AgriFood sector. Each startup tackles a critical vulnerability in today’s food system, from pesticide dependence and biodiversity blindness to the unstable cocoa supply, showing how smarter inputs and circular processes can reduce supply chain risk while improving efficiency. Adoption varies widely, with behavior change still a hurdle for both farmers and consumers, but interest is accelerating fastest in Europe and among major food companies. A recurring theme is that sustainability alone is not enough: as Endless stresses, alternatives only succeed when they deliver on taste, texture, and price. Meanwhile, Mozaic’s work illustrates how biodiversity visibility is shifting from a “nice-to-have” to essential infrastructure and PheroSyn envisions a future where pest-free agriculture and ecological resilience go hand-in-hand . Together, these companies show that environmental innovation is not just supportive of creating future value chains—it is increasingly necessary for it.
