QOA raised a $6 million in a seed funding round led by Cherry Ventures.

QOA, a Munich, Germany-based manufacturer of chocolate products that are 100% cocoa free, announced the completion of a $6 million seed funding round.

The money was raised from investors led by the German early stage investors from Cherry Ventures, joined by Fifty Years, World Fund, Nucleus Capital, Trellis Road, Pioneer Fund and Tet Ventures.

QOA, founded in 2021 by siblings Maximilian Marquart and Sara Marquart, is a producer of alternative chocolate products by using precision fermentation. The company developed a fermentation process that uses natural byproducts from other food-making processes for its base material. It then uses proprietary microbactera and flavor formation to create a vegan product that mimics the texture and flavor of chocolate, but without any artificial additives.

QOA was previously pre-seeded by Nucleus Capital and is one the European startups that were part of Y Combinator in the summer of 2021.