Daily Briefing: Life3 Biotech to build agri-food facility; Demand for sanitisers, thermometers on the rise

And WhatsHalal raises funds in its latest seed round.

From e27:

Biotech startup Life3 Biotech is set to develop a plant-based alternative protein production facility to enhance food security. The project is supported by Singapore Land Authority and Singapore Food Agency.

The facility will be built in Paya Lebar. It will be used to kick-start the production of plant-based alternative protein source Veego.

The facility is said to integrate farm-to-table concept for local production of alternative protein sources.

Read more here. 

From Channel News Asia:

Demand for health and cleaning products such as hand sanitisers, antibacterial soaps and thermometers continue to surge, almost one month into the COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore, pharmacies and supermarkets told CNA.

Prime Supermarket, which has 21 stores, said it made almost five times more sales compared to usual on health and cleaning items, especially hand sanitisers and hand washes.

Dairy Farm Group-ran Cold Storage and Giant, meanwhile, said sales of these items “have been as fast as we can stock them.”

Watson’s on the other hand, said that hand sanitiser sales in the past two weeks were 11 times more than the same period last year, while that for thermometers and alcohol swabs had tripled.

More than two weeks after Singapore raised its disease risk assessment level to Orange, stock levels for popular brands of hand sanitisers and disinfectants continue to run low, said FairPrice.

Read more here. 

From DealstreetAsia:

Foodtech startup WhatsHalal has secured the first tranche of seed funding from Monetary Authority of Singapore-licensed crowdfunding platform FundedHere. The company said that the funding brings the company’s valuation to $4.5m.

The investment will be used to fund WhatsHalal’s regional expansion and develop its proprietary technology platform.

WhatsHalal is enrolled in Batch 6 of Plug and Play Indonesia’s innovation program and was also a part of the first batch of startups participating in government-supported Tribe Accelerator. 

Read more here.