Goterra founder Olympia Yarger is mourning the loss of the business she started from a Fyshwick garage a decade ago, after the climate-tech startup went under voluntary administration this week.
The entrepreneur and former ACT Australian of the Year declined to comment on the future of Goterra's operations after it was taken over by external administrators on Wednesday, but grew emotional when recalling the impact the shutdown will have on her local team.
"I think there's a lot to be said for the fact that Goterra was a Canberra-based innovation that hired 62 people, and 30 of those were Canberrans," Ms Yarger said on Friday.
"We were building processing technology that Canberra doesn't have without any government funding or backing, and we were doing it in a way that was not going to cost the city of Canberra more money [...], and that's a real shame."
Founded out of her garage in 2016, Goterra was built on Ms Yarger's simple idea of using maggots to process food waste to divert it from landfill and reduce emissions.
The former sheep farmer's approach relied on the development of robot-controlled machines, which used black soldier fly larvae to break down food waste and turn it into animal feed and fertiliser.
The business quickly outgrew its Fyshwick base and relocated to a 12,000-square-metre facility in Hume to handle growing demand from local clubs, hotels, and supermarkets.
After securing early backing from tech heavyweights such as Mike Cannon-Brookes' Grok Ventures, Goterra quickly attracted the likes of corporate giants such as Woolworths, Hyatt Hotels, Melbourne Airport, and Lendlease among its high-profile clients.
Despite rising national success, the business kept its local operations in the ACT and in 2020 began handling the food waste generated by Woolworths' Canberra stores.
Last year, Goterra was just $2.6 million short of closing a $10 million funding round that would have valued the company at $55 million, according to reports by the Australian Financial Review.
Unable to disclose specific financial details due to an ongoing sale process, Ms Yarger instead pointed to systemic issues facing local climate tech inventors who build physical infrastructure as opposed to software.
"The challenge for the Australian market is that when it comes to building infrastructure, we do not have enough catalytic funds to deploy that kind of capital," she said.
"We can build them, we just can't fund them."
Goterra's collapse mirrors a wider downturn in the global insect farming industry. Over the past year alone, several international startups have collapsed due to financial pressure, including France's Insect, Canada's Aspire Food Group, and Denmark's Enorm Biofactory.
Looking back on the decade she spent building the business, Ms Yarger said that leading Goterra had been "the privilege of my life".
When asked what advice she would give to other women looking to launch their own agriculture technology startups, she paused before offering a final thought.
"Do it anyway," she said.
