Greetings to 3,000+ Impact Supporters! 🌍 This is Jonas writing 👋 In today’s episode, we sit down with Randi Wahlsten, CEO and co-founder of Matr, a Danish FoodTech startup rethinking how we eat. Matr blends taste, sustainability, and scalable impact — turning humble legumes and root vegetables into craveable, low-footprint meals without additives or over-processing.

We dive into how Randi and her team are building a company where mission meets business, navigating the challenges of funding, scaling, and team-building with vision, intuition, and a touch of naïve optimism.

📋 What’s Inside

🧬 From Microbes to Meals – Crafting craveable, plant-based food 💡 Taste First, Tech Second – Why simplicity wins with consumers 💶 A €40 Million Leap – Scaling production and earning trust 🚀 Building a Team That Can Fly – Lessons in leadership and hiring 🌍 Why It Matters – Making impact through taste and accessibility

👩‍💼 Meet Randi Wahlsten

Randi brings decades of experience in strategy, consumer goods, and food innovation. After time at McKinsey, Dalberg, and Arla, she found in Matr a way to unite her business expertise with her values. For Randi, Matr isn’t just a food company. It’s a mission. Every decision, from ingredients to hiring, is weighed against one question: does this create positive impact for people and the planet? 🌱

🧬 From Microbes to Meals

Matr began in an old fish factory kitchen in Denmark, a space that smelled faintly of brine and wood, where the hum of refrigerators was punctuated by clinks of metal as the small founding team experimented late into the night.

Their vision was bold yet simple: turn natural ingredients into plant-based foods that taste incredible through fermentation; no shortcuts, no additives. The first prototypes were, in Randi’s words, “half-decent,” but they persisted, blending science and intuition, and inviting chefs to taste, critique, and refine.

Over months of trial and error, a sensory transformation took place. Legumes that had once seemed mundane became rich, umami-packed flavours. Root vegetables that no one noticed turned into subtly sweet, savoury highlights. What emerged was more than food. It was an experience👩‍🍳

💡 Taste First, Tech Second

Even though Matr’s process relies on cutting-edge fermentation science, their success has always started with flavour.

Randi and her team discovered that no consumer would fall in love with a product simply because it’s sustainable. Taste had to lead. Early collaborations with restaurants became the proving ground. Chefs tasted, tweaked, and applauded, turning the lab experiments into dishes diners raved about. Only once the flavours won hearts did Matr bring the products to retail 🛒

The lesson is simple but powerful: for sustainable food to scale, it must win over hearts (and palates) before principles.

💶 A €40 Million Leap

Scaling food production is very different from scaling software. It’s slower, harder, and more tangible. Yet Matr’s momentum is undeniable.

After consistently selling out small-batch runs and achieving chef repurchase rates above 80%, the company secured a €40 million Series A to build its first industrial-scale facility and expand internationally.

It’s proof that disciplined growth, a clear vision, and a deep understanding of both product and process can win investor confidence, even in a challenging market 💪

🚀 Building a Team That Can Fly

Randi seeks team members who blend experience with curiosity. She hires senior professionals willing to dive into hands-on problem solving, alongside young talent eager to learn at warp speed ⚡

The culture at Matr isn’t dictated from the top. It emerges organically. People don’t need to be pushed; they pull themselves forward because they believe in what they’re creating. Randi explains:

“We’ve learned that you can’t outsource conviction. Everyone at Matr needs to believe in why we’re doing this; from the chefs to the engineers. That’s what keeps the mission alive when things get hard.”

Conviction keeps the team motivated during long nights in the lab or when scaling challenges feel insurmountable. It’s the invisible ingredient that flavours everything they do.

🌍 Why this matters for you as an impact VC

Matr shows that meaningful impact doesn’t require grand gestures. It can be embedded in products people genuinely love.

By combining taste, quality, and purpose, Matr demonstrates that the plant-based revolution doesn’t need to preach. It can simply taste good, feel natural, and scale organically.

Behind the success is a mindset that carries the company through uncertainty. Randi reflects on how optimism can be a powerful driver:

“I’ve learned that optimism isn’t about ignoring the challenges; it’s about trusting that if you bring the right people together around a real purpose, you’ll find a way through.”

It’s a philosophy woven into every recipe, every hiring decision, and every scaling milestone, proving that impact and enjoyment can coexist in every bite 🍽️

✨ Closing Thoughts

Randi’s journey with Matr reminds us that building a business that truly makes a difference is never easy. It takes vision, persistence, and the courage to make hard choices. She reminds us of the value of patience and careful decision-making, like when she turned down one of the world’s largest retail chains to stay focused on the company’s strategy. Every decision is measured not just for growth or profit, but for the positive impact it can create for people, communities, and the planet.

Matr shows that impact is woven into the everyday decisions of a company. It is about creating food people genuinely love, nurturing a team that believes in the mission, and scaling thoughtfully so that every product sold leaves the world a little better than it found it. In doing so, Matr proves that business and impact are not opposing forces. When guided by conviction and care, a company can transform the way we eat and, in the process, shift the future of food for the better. ✨

Tell us what you think: Are plant-based startups like Matr the future of sustainable food? You can leave a comment below or simply drop us a note at ImpactSupporters@thefootprintfirm.com.

👋Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter,

Jonas Ahm-Lundgren

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit impactvc.substack.com

Crafting craveable change: how Randi Wahlsten is scaling Matr 🍽️

Impact Supporters

Crafting craveable change: how Randi Wahlsten is scaling Matr 🍽️