COFIDES takes minority stake in Barcelona plant-protein maker Elian with €40M investment

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COFIDES, the state-owned Spanish development finance company, has put €40 million into Elian, a Barcelona agribusiness that makes plant-based protein at the Port of Barcelona, and becomes a minority shareholder. The money comes through FOCO, a co-investment fund created under the addendum to Spain's Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, which only invests alongside foreign investors. Here the foreign co-investor is Elian's own owner, Viserion International, a commodities merchant based in Boulder, Colorado, backed by a fund managed by New York's Pinnacle Asset Management.

Andrés Martín founded Elian in January 2021. Cumulative investment in the port project has passed €300 million. Elian bought a soybean crushing plant in 2024 and announced an expansion at the end of 2025, due to finish in early 2028. That will take the site to 90,000 square metres and add more than 100,000 tonnes a year of protein-derivative capacity to the current 770,000. Catalonia's agency ACCIÓ chipped in a €2.25 million grant.

Elian had €400 million in revenue in 2025 with 90 employees, which works out to a fair amount of soybean per person. Martín said the plant has become "infrastructure of strategic national importance". The company also wants non-GMO soy grown on 3,000 hectares in Catalonia and Aragon during 2026, and is looking at acquisitions.