Building NXW Nutrition from Water in Portugal
In March 2025, NXW Nutrition from Water was capitalised through the venture capital programme of Portugal's Plano de Recuperação e Resiliência, financed by the European Union through NextGenerationEU.
The investment was made against five objectives: (1) Develop and distribute the Marine Whey platform, (2) Initiate Marine Whey powder production in Portugal, (3) Participate in category activation including trade shows, (4) Launch prototype development of next generation strains, and (5) Centralise the team in Portugal.
Together with other funding, this investment supported NXW Nutrition from Water through a period of progress against all five. Some of what it produced:
A place inside the Portuguese ecosystem. NXW Nutrition from Water now has its team on the ground in Portugal, with the technical and commercial depth to carry the next stage of the scale-up. We built working relationships with Portuguese institutions including the University of Algarve and Unicorn Factory Lisboa. In November, Portugal's Agência Nacional de Inovação granted NXW Nutrition from Water its R&D seal, a recognition of the company as a research and development entity in Portugal.
A new product, and the science behind it. In September we introduced Marine Whey Gold, which joined Marine Whey 50 in our Marine Whey platform. Behind it sits a manufacturing and lab relationship with Portuguese partners, through which we produce and continue to improve Marine Whey 50. Establishing a path from science to pilot production without leaving Portugal. Alongside the product work we screened more than 300 live cultures from our strain library. Of the first hundred analysed in detail, nineteen carried naturally occurring protein above 40 per cent, and several reached between 60 and 74 per cent before any optimisation. That library is what the next product will be built from.
The first validated application at scale. In October we announced a global partnership with SIG to pair Marine Whey with advanced aseptic packaging. Together with SIG we ran a first application production at scale. Those applications now do a job at trade shows that no slide can. They give a potential customer something to taste, and a concrete example of how the ingredient behaves inside their own formulations.
A market for the category. We set out to build a new category, and categories get built in public. Across 2025 we took the argument to national and international industry events such as summits, trade shows and conferences. By the end of the year the argument was being made by people other than us. FoodNavigator named Marine Whey the hottest food tech innovation of 2025. F6S listed NXW Nutrition from Water among Portugal's leading climate-tech companies. Protein Production Technology International shortlisted us as a food-tech to watch in 2026.
About NXW Nutrition from Water
NXW Nutrition from Water is a natural biotechnology company producing affordable, complete, water-derived protein and fibre ingredients at industrial scale. The company partners with global food and nutrition corporations to diversify ingredient supply, reduce costs, and build resilient supply chains. For media enquiries, contact: hi@nutritionfromwater.com
About the Plano de Recuperação e Resiliência
The Recovery and Resilience Facility is the European Union instrument at the centre of NextGenerationEU, established to repair the economic and social damage of the COVID-19 pandemic and to build a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe. In Portugal it is delivered through the Plano de Recuperação e Resiliência. NXW Nutrition from Water was capitalised under the Programa de Venture Capital, a €400 million initiative of the Fundo de Capitalização e Resiliência that backs Portuguese companies from pre-seed to scale-up through selected venture capital funds. The investment came through Atlântico II, managed by August One Capital SCR, S.A.
Financiado pela União Europeia – NextGenerationEU
More information: recuperarportugal.gov.pt