Farmless

Going beyond the limiting constraints of photosynthesis.

We use bacteria to turn simple feedstocks into complex proteins using fermentation like we've been doing for millennia with wine, beer, bread and yoghurt.

While there are many companies pursuing fermented proteins, practically all of them rely on sugars as a feedstock - which are derived from crops grown on agricultural land. Our insight was that we should base our fermentation platform on an easily storable and shippable liquid feedstock which can be simply made from the air with just renewable energy. This allows us to circumvent the inefficiency of photosynthesis and break free of its limiting constraints.

The result of our ambition should be visible from space. What we are building is the spiritual successor to the Haber-Bosch process. While Haber-Bosch led to cheap synthetic fertilizer which currently feeds half of humanity, we have found a way to produce amino acid complete proteins up to ±5000X more land efficient than animals. By rough approximation this could multiply the carrying capacity of the earth by an order of magnitude.

About us

Farmless was founded in 2022 by Adnan Oner. Within two years we have successfully validated the full fermentation to fork process. In the fall of 2024 we moved into a single building that houses R&D, pilot brewery, food application, professional kitchen and offices. Our focus is now on scaling the process by order of magnitude steps and getting to regulatory approval in our most important markets.

We’re a small, highly technical and deeply curious team with deep food and fermentation expertise with backgrounds from the Vegetarian Butcher and DSM to Noma.

We’re based within the city ring of Amsterdam – for a reason! We like to attract the best people from around the world and believe that Amsterdam is a great place to settle – and bike to work. On top of that, the Netherlands is one of the most productive agricultural regions with the mindset to push the boundaries of food production. Here we have the expertise to scale at our fingertips and mindset to push the boundaries of food production. 

We believe that deeptech startups can thrive in Europe, which has the toughest novel foods procedure of the world. When we can make it here, we can make it anywhere. (Also, we want Europe to accelerate.)

We’ve raised 6 million in total with top tier investors including World Fund, Vorwerk and Nucleus.