Sometimes innovation doesn’t start with a whiteboard, it starts with a scientist who looks at a block of cheese and thinks, “I can build that better.” That’s Bettani Farms, formerly Climax Foods, now fresh off a $6.5M Series A initial close led by S2G Investments, with At One Ventures, Gratitude Railroad, Manta Ray Ventures & Toba Capital joining in. A new name, a new CEO, and a sharper focus on the future of flavor.
With Sandeep Patel, ex-CFO at Califia Farms & former President/CFO of PopSockets, now leading as CEO & Chairman, Bettani Farms isn’t just swapping logos. It’s evolving from a promising R&D story into a commercial-scale play. Patel’s move signals that food tech isn’t an experiment anymore, it’s the next big industry vertical.
Founder Oliver Zahn, a Harvard-trained astrophysicist who cut his teeth at Google, SpaceX & Impossible Foods, didn’t leave the cosmos behind, he just rerouted the telescope toward the dairy aisle. Along with co-founder Henry Zhang, Zahn built an AI platform called DeepPlant Intelligence that’s mapped 100K+ plant ingredient combos & produced 5K+ cheese prototypes. The result? Caseed™, a plant-based protein that replicates dairy casein’s melt, stretch & taste, without dairy, nuts, or soy.
This isn’t faux cheese, it’s molecular-level precision. Caseed™ delivers authentic texture while using ~500x less water than traditional dairy. That’s science with flavor and sustainability that actually scales. Michelin-starred chefs like Dominique Crenn & Jean Georges Vongerichten have already put Bettani creations on plates at Eleven Madison Park & Millennium. When fine dining co-signs your product, you’re not chasing a trend, you’re setting the standard.
The $6.5M raise powers the next phase: scaling Caseed™ & launching Caseed™-powered cheeses through B2B collabs with food service & frozen food partners. The new leadership stack, Rajiv Dave (SVP R&D), Tom Zilligen (SVP Sales), & Maxwell Brown (Process Engineer), brings deep bench strength from giants like Nestlé, NUMU & Meati.
Backers like S2G, At One Ventures & Bel Group (the force behind Babybel & The Laughing Cow) aren’t just betting on plant-based, they’re betting on precision protein as the next frontier. Bettani Farms proves that when tech, taste & timing align, you don’t need to disrupt dairy, you just render it obsolete.
