Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
A French insect farming startup that specialized in producing mealworm-based protein primarily for animal feed (aquaculture, livestock, and poultry) and pet food, with some exploration into fertilizers and limited human applications.
A French insect farming startup that specialized in producing mealworm-based protein primarily for animal feed (aquaculture, livestock, and poultry) and pet food, with some exploration into fertilizers and limited human applications.
French startup ลธnsect shot into the spotlight when โIron Manโ star Robert Downey Jr. touted its merits on the โLate Showโ during Super Bowl weekend 2021. Now, nearly four years later, the insect farming company has been placed into judicial liquidation โ essentially bankruptcy โ for insolvency.
And revenue was the problem. According to publicly available data, ลธnsectโs revenue from its main entity peaked at โฌ17.8 million in 2021 (approximately $21 million) โ a figure reportedly inflated by internal transfers between subsidiaries. By 2023, the company had racked up a net loss of โฌ79.7 million ($94 million).
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But the vision collided with market reality. Animal feed is a commodity market driven by price, not sustainability premiums. โฆ
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The 2023 pivot to pet food came too late. By then, ลธnsect had already committed to a massive, capital-intensive bet that would ultimately doom the company. That bet was ลธnfarm, a โgiga-factoryโ in Northern France that the company billed โthe worldโs most expensive bug farm.โ Built for insect production at scale, the facility consumed hundreds of millions in funding โ money spent before ลธnsect had proven its business model or figured out its unit economics.
I love it when green activists and clueless Hollywood celebrities think they know how to run a business.
The fools blew hundreds of millions of dollars on a giant production plant, only to discover their target market didnโt exist. By the time they realised their original plan was a bust, they used internal transfers to inflate reported revenue, then tried to retool their plant for their new target market. But there wasnโt enough money left to solve their retooled plant production problems, so they ran out of cash.
Anyone who has ever run their own business knows that if possible, you start small and field test your ideas, even if you have lots of capital burning a hole in your pocket. No business plan survives contact with reality, you have to test and refine your plan, and if necessary, completely ditch the original plan and pivot into doing something new, while preserving as much capital as possible for the big push once your idea starts to generate revenue.
Details:
Raised over $600 million (approximately โฌ600 million) in funding since 2011 from high-profile investors, including Robert Downey Jr.’s FootPrint Coalition, venture firms like Astanor Ventures, and significant public money from France’s Bpifrance and taxpayer subsidies.
In late December 2025, a French commercial court placed the company into judicial liquidation (the French equivalent of bankruptcy) due to insolvency, after months of financial struggles, failed restructuring attempts, and inability to secure additional funding.
The company’s massive “ลธnfarm” facility in Amiens, Franceโbilled as the world’s largest and most advanced insect farmโbecame a major money sink, costing hundreds of millions before proving viable economics.
Failure:
Despite the hype around sustainability (insects as a low-impact alternative to soy or fishmeal), the business collapsed because:
Animal feed is a low-margin commodity market where buyers prioritize the cheapest optionโinsect protein was 2โ10 times more expensive than traditional sources.
Scaling issues โ production challenges (diseases, parasites, inconsistent quality), high energy and input costs, and reliance on feedstocks that weren’t truly “waste-based” at scale.
Revenue never took off โ peaking at around โฌ18 million (~$21 million) in 2021, with massive losses (e.g., โฌ80 million net loss in 2023).
A late pivot to higher-margin pet food came too late to save the overbuilt infrastructure.
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