Better Bite Ventures

सही रास्ता चुनें

• अगर आप खाद्य, कृषि या क्लाइमेट स्टार्टअप हैं और founding, preseed या seed चरण पर हैं, तो स्थायी पिच रास्ता अपनाएँ। इसकी कोई डेडलाइन नहीं है।
• First Bite, लॉन्च से पहले या हाल में लॉन्च हुए खाद्य और पेय ब्रांड के लिए भारत की कॉल, 23 सितंबर 2026 को बंद हुई। आवेदन समीक्षा में हैं, इसलिए अभी यह प्रवेश का रास्ता नहीं है।
• फ़ंड के पन्ने नहीं बताते कि First Bite कॉल दोबारा चलेगी या नहीं। First Bite पेज और हमारी लिस्टिंग पर नई राउंड के लिए नज़र रखें।

स्थायी रास्ता कैसे काम करता है

• अपना डेक पिच इनबॉक्स पर भेजें। फ़ंड कहता है कि वार्म इंट्रोडक्शन की ज़रूरत नहीं है।
• पार्टनर कहते हैं कि वे हर पिच पढ़ते और उसका जवाब देते हैं।
• प्रक्रिया पाँच चरणों में चलती है: संपर्क करें, पहली कॉल, गहराई से काम, टर्म शीट, और पैसा भेजा जाना।
• कोई आवेदन फ़ॉर्म या कोहोर्ट नहीं है, इसलिए आप किसी भी समय डेक भेज सकते हैं।

फ़ंड के लिए क्या फ़िट बैठता है

• यह अपने फ़ोकस क्षेत्रों में चावल में उत्सर्जन, कम सिंथेटिक उर्वरक के साथ पैदावार सुधार, खाद्य अपशिष्ट घटाना, टिकाऊ सामग्री और प्रोटीन, और शैवाल को सूचीबद्ध करता है।
• यह founding, preseed और seed चरणों में समर्थन देता है।
• First Bite के लिए फ़ंड ने अकेले संस्थापकों का स्वागत किया, निगमन या ट्रैक्शन की आवश्यकता नहीं रखी, और पहले छोटा प्रारंभिक राउंड जुटाने वाले संस्थापकों को स्वीकार किया।

भेजने से पहले

• इंस्ट्रूमेंट पर बात करने के लिए तैयार रहें। फ़ंड अपने होमपेज पर SAFEs पसंद करता है, और कहा है कि भारतीय कंपनियाँ compulsorily convertible preference shares या कन्वर्टिबल जैसे भारत में आम इंस्ट्रूमेंट इस्तेमाल करेंगी।
• अपने पहले संदेश में स्पष्ट करें कि आप कहाँ स्थित हैं और उसके किस फ़ोकस क्षेत्र में आते हैं। उसके पन्ने क्षेत्र के रूप में एशिया पैसिफ़िक बताते हैं।
• व्यक्तिगत पार्टनरों के बजाय उसकी साइट पर दिए रोल इनबॉक्स पर लिखें।

Better Bite Ventures is an early-stage venture fund that invests in food, agriculture and climate technology startups across Asia Pacific. It is run by Better Bite Management Limited, and its careers page says the fund is domiciled in New Zealand. It was created by two operators turned impact investors, Michal Klar and Simon Newstead, who are listed as its Founding Partners. Founders can pitch it directly through its website, and in 2026 it ran First Bite, an investment call aimed at Indian food and beverage startups.

What Better Bite invests in

The fund says its focus areas include food and agriculture: reducing emissions in rice, improving yields while using less synthetic fertilizer, cutting food waste, and new sustainable ingredients and proteins, including algae. The pitch page lists the stages it backs as Founding, Preseed and Seed,.

Its positioning is described in more than one way across its pages. The home page leads with alternative protein, while its careers page calls it a food-agri and climate tech investor. The First Bite call went to a different kind of company again: consumer food and beverage brands such as snacks, supplements, spices and condiments. Read it as a fund with a broad food and climate remit rather than a single-category fund.

How founders reach the fund

There are two routes. The first is the standing pitch route. The home page says no warm introduction is needed: a founder sends a deck to the pitch inbox, and the partners say they read and reply to every pitch. It describes a five-step process: get in touch, a first call, digging in, a term sheet, and money wired. No deadline or application window is attached to this route, and it is not a cohort or an accelerator.

The second route was First Bite, a one-off call for India. Better Bite ran it with the support of Suhasini Sampath, co-founder of Yoga Bar. It was open to India-based founders of pre-launch or recently launched consumer food and beverage brands. Solo founders could apply, incorporation was not required, and neither traction nor an introduction was needed. A founder who had already raised a small early round, or had one in progress, was still eligible. Applications closed on 23 September 2026 and the team says it is reviewing them. Shortlisted applicants are contacted for a conversation. Questions went to the First Bite inbox.

Terms

The fund invests for equity, and its pages describe two different instruments. The home page says it likes SAFEs and suggests a standard Y Combinator-style SAFE. The First Bite page says that for Indian startups it would use standard early-stage instruments common in India, such as compulsorily convertible preference shares or a convertible, with the valuation and structure agreed startup by startup. The pages do not say which applies to an Indian company outside First Bite, so ask the team.

The fund states cheque sizes and a maximum for First Bite on its own pages. We do not repeat them here, because such figures change.

Track record

The figures below are Better Bite's own, and its pages do not quite agree. The home page says it has invested early in 34 startups, while the First Bite and careers pages say 30+ startups backed across Asia Pacific. Both fit a portfolio of a little over thirty companies, but treat the count as approximate. The First Bite page also says its startups have since gone on to raise substantial follow-on funding, a claim we have not checked.

The fund says it is backed by impact investors, growth-stage fund managers, family offices and food and tech entrepreneurs from Asia, the United States and Europe. Its portfolio company names are listed on its home page.

Asia Climate Hub

Better Bite also helps run Asia Climate Hub, an open database of climate startups and investors in the region, free to use. The site says the hub tracks over 2500 climate-tech startups and investors in Asia Pacific and adds new entries each week. That count is the hub's, not Better Bite's own portfolio.

Who runs it

Michal Klar and Simon Newstead are the Founding Partners. The pitch page names Michal, Simon and Eshan as the people who read and reply to pitches. The site also has a careers page.

Where it is based

Better Bite invests across Asia Pacific. Its careers page states that the fund is domiciled in New Zealand. No page we read gives an office address or names a city for the team, so we do not list one. The First Bite call was for India only, and the First Bite page says the fund invests across Asia Pacific, including India. Whether India-based founders can use the standing pitch route is not spelled out on the pitch section itself, but nothing there rules it out.

Contact

The general inbox is hello@betterbite.vc. Pitches go to pitch@betterbite.vc, and First Bite questions went to firstbite@betterbite.vc.