Antoine Hubert co-founded Ynsect in 2011 with Jean-Gabriel Levon, Fabrice Berro and Alexis Angot. The plan was to farm insects in vertical farms and turn them into protein for animal feed and into fertilizer. The first farm opened in Dole in 2015, and a larger vertical farm at Poulainville was announced in 2018.
Fertilizer received authorisation in 2020. That year Ynsect closed a large round with Astanor and Robert Downey Jr.'s fund, worth about $372 million. In 2021 it bought Protifarm in the Netherlands. A €160 million Series D followed in 2023, and Hubert stepped back as CEO in July of that year.
Costs doubled between 2022 and 2023. Insect meal cost two to ten times as much as fishmeal or soy meal, and demand for insect food stayed low. Ynsect entered safeguard proceedings in September 2024 and judicial reorganisation in March 2025.
About 70% of its 200 jobs were cut in June 2025. A court ordered liquidation in December 2025. Over its life the company had raised about €600 million.