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Glenntex: Govin Induchoodan shares how to get funded in 2025

Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs 

In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.

Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners; Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.

Episode 24: Glenntex: Govin Induchoodan shares how to get funded in 2025

In this episode, we sit down with Govin, co-founder of Glenntex, a climate tech startup spun out of academic research at Chalmers University. Govin shares his journey from PhD researcher to entrepreneur, detailing how he built a deep-tech packaging company with sustainability at its core. He dives into how Sweden’s unique innovation ecosystem empowered him to retain ownership of his research, secured a SEK 7.2M pre-seed round led by corporate VC, and built early traction by partnering with customers to co-design the product. Packed with wisdom for researchers and founders alike, this conversation is a masterclass in turning science into startup success.

Key Facts Glenntex:

• Goal: To  help customers, companies, brands, and manufacturers make their packaging more sustainable.
• Recently raised SEK 7.2M pre-seed round led by Almi Invest and joined by PINC.

Alex’s Top Findings:

1. Deep Tech Founders Must Learn to Speak Commercial. One of Govin’s biggest challenges was translating scientific language into commercial value for both customers and investors. "  I think the biggest objection for me, I would say, is do not sound too scientific yet. Learn how to translate and communicate in the simplest, effective way possible, and still sound mature and deep tech. That has been the biggest hurdle to cross.”
2. Customers Can Help You Design Your Product. Before raising funding, Glenntex validated its tech by co-developing solutions with customers—treating them like design partners, not just buyers. "You don’t need to have a product. You need to have a customer design your product.”
3. Build a 5-Year Table to Reverse-Engineer Your Fundraise. Govin mapped out five years of company growth across areas like market, team, product, and customer, which helped him align investment asks with future milestones. " I made this table: market, product, team, customer, and investors. It was kind of reverse engineering to understand it. I would definitely recommend anybody."