Munich Startup: Sara, what motivated you to found Planet A Foods?
Sara Marquart, co-founder and CTO at Planet A Foods: I’ve always been fascinated by developing products, by making something tangible that you can hold in your hand at the end of the day. This runs through my entire career path – from my doctoral work, through my time as a curator where I was able to realize my own exhibition that was visited by several hundred thousand people, to my work in the food industry in the USA and Switzerland.
Step by step you learn and grow
Munich Startup: What would you have liked to know before your first founding?
Sara Marquart: I think it’s like many things. In retrospect, it’s simpler than you thought beforehand. As a person, you always think: “How am I going to do this, how do I tackle the whole thing?” – whether it’s founding or other decisions in life. And then it turns out that you take one step at a time and learn and grow along the way.
Munich Startup: How has your company been financed so far?
Sara Marquart: Planet A Foods is financed through venture capital – we just announced our Series A funding round with $15.4 million in February. The Series A round is led by climate tech VC World Fund, and other VC firms like Cherry Ventures and Omnes Capital have also participated. We want to use the investment primarily to scale our cocoa-free chocolate ChoViva into new markets outside Germany and to expand our technology platform to other food products such as cocoa butter alternatives.
Tip: just go through with the pitch
Munich Startup: When and where do you get your best ideas?
Sara Marquart: While driving or walking – whenever I can let my thoughts wander a bit and I have time to think. Or in many cases, in creative exchange with my team or my brother Max.
Munich Startup: What are your 3 favorite work tools?
Sara Marquart: Phew, I’d say: Excel, Python, and ChatGPT.
Munich Startup: Your top tip on “pitching”?
Sara Marquart: Don’t listen to the nervousness and just go through with it. Everyone is nervous when they present to people. It doesn’t get much better either; you just get used to the feeling of nervousness. For me, speaking to two people or to 15,000 is almost the same at the end of the day.
Sara Marquart: “We need founders and innovation if we want to make progress as humanity.”
Munich Startup: Does it seem like a good time to found a company right now? Why?
Sara Marquart: It’s always a good time to found a company because there are so many opportunities and possibilities to move our society forward as a whole. It’s something deeply ingrained in human nature to keep innovating: from the first time beer was brewed thousands of years ago, to the telescope or the automobile. In other words: we need founders and innovation if we want to make progress as humanity. Of course, financing options and availability have been better before, but also worse. With a good product and a good idea, you’ll surely find someone who believes in you.
Munich Startup: What technology or industry would you focus on for your next founding?
Sara Marquart: I find food interesting, after all I come from the food industry. But next time I might perhaps venture into something in chemistry or in the tech or software space. We’ll see, I have a few ideas jotted down in my notepad. Besides that, and I think that counts as founding too, I’d love to do more hands-on work. For example in agriculture, such as with my own vineyard and winery.
Bureaucracy in Germany: a nightmare
Munich Startup: What could be improved at the Munich startup location in your view?
Sara Marquart: Munich is already a top ecosystem for technical founders. We have a strong location for software, IT, biotech, chemistry, medicine, because we have leading universities like the LMU and TU, with an excellent talent pool. Fundamentally, however, the bureaucracy in Germany and Bavaria is a nightmare! And one could expect more support from the state and federal government to help the young minds of this country more strongly with founding. Especially financially, as other countries do.
Munich Startup: Which founder would you like to meet in person? And what would you ask them?
Sara Marquart: Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. I find both of them very interesting and, at least in public, perceived as humble personalities. I’d like to learn more about their founding story and their learnings, what they did the same way and what they would do differently next time. And how they balanced work with family.
