Excerpted from a press release.
Sumitomo Corp., through Sumitomo Corporation do Brasil SA, announced a joint investment in Cyns, a biotechnology company located in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to unlock the next chapter of the black soldier fly ( BSF) farming in Latin America.
Started in 2015, Cyns’ specializes in sustainable insect-based animal nutrition in South America. Its BSF ingredients are found in dog treats, birds and other exotic pet foods available at Brazil’s largest pet retail outlets.
Lambarin Investimentos, a Brazilian family office and wealth management firm, also participated in the seed founding round with Sumitomo.
“We believe that we have a very competitive technology and we have developed a very high quality product,” said João Pisa Cyns director. “Partnering with Lambarim and Sumitomo will expand our commercial operations in the Americas and around the world and allow us to scale production to the levels this business demands.”
Cyns is the first company to obtain regulatory approval to produce and market black soldier fly-based ingredients for animal nutrition in Brazil, the company said. Located in Piracicaba, Sao Paulo, the most famous agtech valley in Brazil, the company has developed a unique, cost-competitive horizontal BSF rearing system that delivers high bioconversion rates with minimum HVAC requirements by using natural suitable conditions of Brazil for raising the BSF and large. having a sustainable food byproduct stream used as a source of nutrition for BSF larvae.
Cyns originated in 2015 as a project facilitated by Bug Biological Agents, which is the pioneer in insect rearing for biological pest control in Latam. In 2020, it received its first angel investment from Lambarin Investimentos, and in 2022 Cyns opened Brazil’s first BSF industrial pilot to receive regulatory approval. Since,
“We are excited to support the accelerated growth and distribution of alternative feed ingredients needed for animal feeds in Latin America,” said João Simões, Insect Protein Project Leader at Sumitomo Corporation do Brasil SA “Ensuring a sustainable supply chain while reducing its carbon footprint is critical in today’s business landscape, and we are proud to partner with Cyns to accomplish this important work.”
New breeding facility to reach new markets
Sumitomo and Lambarin’s new investment will support Cyns’ next phase of growth, where they plan to establish a new BSF growing facility capable of producing 1,000 MT of BSF meal/year, and reach new markets including dog and cat food, aquaculture and monogastric animals in Brazil and Latam. The company is also preparing for its Series A investment round, expected in 2026, when the company should be ready to expand production capacity in Brazil and internationally, starting with neighboring South American countries.
Insect-based nutrition is one of the leading solutions to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of animal nutrition, which together with agriculture, constitutes the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions with approximately 25% of all emissions . Insect-based ingredients are known to have a lower carbon intensity than their plant- and animal-based ingredients counterparts, which contributes to reducing the carbon footprint of pet food and animal feed by at least at 60% to 70% or more.
Along with the investment, Sumitomo Corporation do Brasil also signed a commercial partnership agreement with Cyns, where Sumitomo Corporation do Brasil will manage application development and R&D, as well as the marketing of Cyns products in the region of America.
