Gaia Tech

Gaia Tech turns residues form the agrifood industry into high-value ingredients for cosmetics, food, and feed manufacturers. Gaia Tech is emerging from the research project “Phenoliva”, an endeavor financed by EIT Food and hosted at the ETH Zurich. The ETH Spin-off company develops technologies that can unlock and market valuable resources found in byproducts from the agrofood sector, primarily olive sidestreams. The proprietary extraction technology, which is modular and scalable, has been awarded for its environmental friendliness and efficiency. The team successfully concluded the Startlife Accelerator Program sponsored by the University of Wageningen and has been selected among the 12 finalists of the MassChallenge Switzerland. Gaia is also nominated for the Startup Innovation Final by Food Ingredients Europe. In 2022, Gaia Tech has collectively secured grants and loans from Switzerland Innovation (Tech4Impact), Venture Kick, MassChallenge, the Foundation for Technological Innovation STI and the Bern Economic Development Agency to support its growth. In 2023, Gaia Tech was converted into an AG, has won the De Vigier Award and has raised a pre-seed round. The Migros Pioneer Fund is the startups innovation partner and supports sustainable solutions for societal challenges with the goal of initiating systemic change towards a future-oriented society. The team has also access to key expertise from the Innosuisse core coaching program. The School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences HAFL in Bern provides infrastructure for the pilot production. The startup aims to scale the technology to other types of agricultural and food production waste and expand its product range to enable manufacturers to use new and substitute dubious ingredients.