Executive Summary: Volare opened Volare 01, a 10,000 square metre insect protein plant in Pori, Finland, on 26 October 2026, built on a EUR 15 million capital budget, and closed a EUR 7.1 million round through Springvest the same day. The plant targets up to 5,000 tonnes of insect protein a year, with pet food offtake agreed with Alvar Pet and Dagsmark, and puts pet sustainability claims on a domestic supply base. Rival insect producers have failed across Europe in the past 18 months.
Key Facts
- Company
- Volare, Helsinki, Finland, founded 2021 as a VTT Technical Research Centre spin-off
- Event
- Opening of Volare 01, an industrial insect protein plant in Pori, Finland, on 26 October 2026
- Funding
- EUR 7.1 million raised through the Springvest platform, with Maki.vc among investors
- Plant scale
- 10,000 square metres in a former newspaper printing hall; capital budget EUR 15 million
- Capacity
- Up to 5,000 tonnes of insect protein and 2,000 tonnes of insect oil a year
- Pet food offtake
- Commercial supply to Alvar Pet for dog treats and Dagsmark for cat food
- Next step
- A second facility planned at roughly five times the protein capacity of Volare 01
- Sector context
- ENORM bankrupt, Inseco closed, Ynsect in court protection, Aspire selling assets
What Happened
Volare opened its first industrial plant on 26 October 2026. Volare 01 occupies 10,000 square metres inside a former newspaper printing hall in Pori, on Finland’s west coast, and was built on a EUR 15 million capital budget. The company said the project finished on schedule and inside budget.
The same day, Volare closed a EUR 7.1 million round raised through the Springvest platform, with new and existing investors including Maki.vc. No lead investor was named and the company did not label the round by stage. The proceeds go into ramping Volare 01 and preparing a second facility the company says will carry about five times the protein capacity.
The plant is designed for up to 5,000 tonnes of insect protein and 2,000 tonnes of insect oil a year from black soldier fly larvae fed on food-industry side streams. It is a thousandfold scale-up from the demonstration plant Volare has run for four years, designed to operate with four people per shift.
Background
Volare was founded in 2021 on technology from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, by chief executive Jarna Hyvönen and VTT colleagues Tuure Parviainen and Matti Tähtinen. The company raised EUR 26 million in May 2025 to build the plant and has sold protein commercially since 2022, initially in small volumes to pet food and aquaculture customers.
The pet food relationship predates the plant. Volare supplies Alvar Pet for dog treats and Dagsmark for cat food, and sells into rainbow trout feed through Alltech Fennoaqua and into organic poultry feed. Those are small tonnages, but they are qualification references: a customer that has run a formula through commercial production is harder to replace than one that has signed a letter of intent.
The cost case rests on retrofitting: Volare says reusing an existing hall saved about a year of development time, and the all-electric process cuts exposure to fuel prices and simplifies permitting.
Industry Context
The insect protein sector has spent three years learning that technology is the easy part. ENORM in Denmark raised around EUR 50 million, entered a six-month court-supervised restructuring and was declared bankrupt. Inseco ceased operations, Ynsect sought court protection and Aspire Food Group is selling assets after defaulting on debt. The common failure is capacity built ahead of demand, financed with debt, at a cost per tonne that soy and fishmeal did not need to match.
Demand is real but slow. Europe’s insect feed market was worth USD 0.60 billion in 2026 and is forecast to reach USD 1.07 billion by 2031, a 12.3% compound annual growth rate, according to Research and Markets. Twelve percent a year is a workable market; it does not reward plants built for twenty.
Pet food is where insect protein finds its easiest buyer: treats and specialty nutrition absorb a higher ingredient cost than farm animal feed, and brands claiming sustainable pet products pay for traceable protein. That is why the first Finnish volumes went into treats.
Market & Business Impact
Volare 01 changes insect protein availability in Northern Europe. Five thousand tonnes a year is small against regional output but enough for several mid-sized treat brands.
For Volare, the constraint has moved from engineering to sales. Part of capacity is committed under offtake with Skretting and a global chemical company, and the pet food volumes are contracted. The remaining tonnes must cover a plant built for EUR 15 million and a successor five times the size.
Volare claims four to ten times less capital expenditure, about 50% fewer employees and 30% less energy in end-product processing than competing producers, with protein meal above 90% digestibility. Those are company figures without independent audit, and the next two years will test them against production data. Whether that becomes a durable position in the european pet food market supply chain depends on the second plant, not this one.
Data & Evidence
Funding: EUR 7.1 million, announced 26 October 2026 through Springvest, with Maki.vc participating. Previous round: EUR 26 million in May 2025. Capacity: up to 5,000 tonnes of insect protein and 2,000 tonnes of insect oil a year. Second facility: roughly five times the protein capacity of Volare 01. Market forecast: Europe insect feed USD 0.60 billion in 2026, rising to USD 1.07 billion by 2031 (Research and Markets, June 2026).
Volare’s efficiency claims – four to ten times less capital expenditure, about 50% fewer employees, 30% less energy – are company statements and have not been independently verified. GPI reports them as claims.
What This Means for the Pet Industry
Insect protein has stopped being a technology question and become a contracts question. Volare’s plant matters less for its 5,000 tonnes than for how it was built: against named offtake, inside budget, while better-funded rivals went bankrupt. If that model holds, insect meal enters pet food as an ordinary ingredient with a premium story attached, and the brands that signed early end up with a cost advantage.
Key Takeaways
- Volare opened Volare 01, a 10,000 square metre insect protein plant in Pori, Finland, built on a EUR 15 million capital budget inside a former newspaper printing hall.
- The company raised EUR 7.1 million through the Springvest platform on the same day, with Maki.vc among the investors, to ramp the plant and prepare a second facility at roughly five times the protein capacity.
- Volare 01 targets up to 5,000 tonnes of insect protein and 2,000 tonnes of insect oil a year, with part of the output committed to Skretting and to Nordic pet food companies Alvar Pet and Dagsmark.
- The opening runs against the sector: ENORM was declared bankrupt, Inseco ceased operations, Ynsect sought court protection and Aspire Food Group is selling assets, which makes execution and offtake the deciding variables rather than technology.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did Volare open and where?
Volare opened Volare 01, a 10,000 square metre insect protein factory in Pori, Finland, inside a former newspaper printing hall and within its EUR 15 million capital budget.
How much did Volare raise?
EUR 7.1 million, raised through the Springvest platform with new and existing investors including Maki.vc. The company raised a separate EUR 26 million in May 2025 to build the plant.
Who buys the insect protein for pet food?
Volare has supplied Alvar Pet for dog treats and Dagsmark for cat food, and holds offtake agreements with aquafeed producer Skretting and an unnamed global chemical company. Part of Volare 01’s capacity is already committed.
Why have other insect protein companies failed?
The pattern is capital intensity followed by execution slippage: plants built ahead of confirmed offtake, with price competition from soy and fishmeal leaving no room to absorb delays. ENORM raised about EUR 50 million before bankruptcy, and Ynsect and Aspire Food Group followed similar paths.
Sources
- Primary — Volare announcement of the Volare 01 opening and EUR 7.1 million raise, 26 Oct 2026, as reported by Tech.eu and summarised by Sesamers, https://www.sesamers.com/funding/volare-raises-7-1m-insect-protein-factory-pori, 26 Oct 2026
- Secondary — Impact Loop, ‘Investors confident in sprawling new insect protein factory despite sector challenges’, https://impactloop.com/article/investors-confident-in-massive-new-insect-protein-factory-despite-historic-failures-in-the-sector, 26 Oct 2026
- Secondary — Signal Titans, report on the Pori plant opening and sector bankruptcies, https://signaltitans.com/finnish-startup-volare-opens-industrial-insect-protein-plant-and-secures-7-1m-amid-sector-strain, 26 Oct 2026
- Data — Research and Markets, European insect feed market forecast, June 2026, cited by Sesamers
