Maia Farms, a Vancouver-based food technology company developing mushroom and mycelium-based ingredients, has closed an oversubscribed $3.75 million Seed equity financing as it looks to ramp up commercial production and expand partnerships with food manufacturers and distributors worldwide. The seed round was led by Active Impact Investments, with follow-on investments from Nya Planet, Ag-West Bio, PIC Investment Group, and Deep Checks. Separately, the company has also cited strategic and non-dilutive support from Genome BC, Natural Products Canada, Protein Industries Canada, and the National Research Council of Canada.
The round brings Maia Farms’ total funding secured in 2025 to more than $6.5 million, including equity and non-dilutive support.
Maia Farms said the funding will fund its next growth phase, including scaling commercial production, broadening its portfolio of commercially available mushroom and mycelium-based ingredients, and deepening relationships with food manufacturers and ingredient distributors. The company plans to expand fermentation and extrusion processing capacity in 2026, strengthen its proprietary Fungal Intelligence platform, and add to its commercial and operational teams to support long-term supply agreements. Maia Farms was founded in 2021 by Gavin Schneider, Ashton Ostrander, and Dr. Sean Lacoursiere.
Alongside the financing, Maia Farms announced additions to its Board of Directors. Mike Winterfield of Active Impact will join the board, as will Yuan Shi of Nya Planet, both of whom bring experience in commercial strategy and climate-smart food systems. Maia Farms also noted that in 2025 it launched an impact partnership with The Greater Vancouver Food Bank as part of its Nourish Life Mission.
KEY QUOTES
“We’re grateful for our partners’ support. This funding accelerates Maia’s growth as we put food first, scale sustainably, and help customers lead the next wave of food innovation.”
“I’m grateful for the support of our new financial partners. Maia has had an amazing growth trajectory, and we are making a real impact by putting food first. With this funding, we are focussed on building Canada’s next great food technology company. Our growth is the result of deep intention and the perseverance of what a small, committed group of people can do together. Mushrooms solve problems in food manufacturing in an economical and sustainable. We are determined to support our customers to lead in this next wave of food innovation.”
Gavin Schneider, Chief Executive Officer, Maia Farms
“We’re excited to support Gavin and the Maia Farms team as they scale what is already working. Maia has demonstrated making food ingredients with a fermentation and extrusion based process that can outperform conventional options on cost, nutrition and taste. We see significant potential for the company to shape the future of global production and consumption.”
Mike Winterfield, Managing Partner, Active Impact Investment
“Maia Farms represents the kind of systems-level innovation we seek as investors—technology with the potential to meaningfully improve food resilience, food security, and sustainability at scale. This team has demonstrated consistent progress in translating innovation into real-world applications. We look forward to supporting Maia Farms as they advance commercialization and expand their impact.”
Yuan Shi, General Partner, Nya Planet
“Maia Farms has proven that they can solve some of the hardest problems in creating scalable, nutrient rich, and great tasting mushroom protein through fermentation. As a Saskatchewan-based fund, Ag-West Bio is proud to invest in Maia Farms, since it is an opportunity to partner and leverage Prairie infrastructure and expertise in fermentation and food manufacturing while also helping a great Canadian innovation scale to the world.”
Mike Wolsfeld, Investment Manager, Ag-West Bio
