Creditors vote to put food waste startup Goterra in liquidation

A second creditors meeting on Wednesday voted to place the business in liquidation when no buyer emerged after the decade-old Canberra startup was placed in voluntary administration on June 3.

Goterra turned food scraps into insect protein and fertiliser using black soldier fly larvae, using a modular shipping container system dubbed “maggot robots”.

But the report handed to creditors ahead of Wednesday’s meeting revealed attempts to raise additional capital in early 2026, amid ongoing losses as Goterra scaled, fell through, despite positive signs.

Administrators Teneo Financial Advisory Australia subsequently recommended the company be wound up.

“We continue to explore all available options regarding the future of the company and remain engaged in discussions with a range of parties,” a spokesperson for Teneo told Startup Daily ahead of the meeting.

The administrators tried to sell or recapitalise Goterra, receiving 34 inbound enquiries, with 22 parties taking a closer look, but no offers emerged. While Goterra’s tech had value, the capital needed to make it succeed appeared insurmountable to any new owner.

The company’s revenue was growing. Revenue grew from around $365,000 in FY23 to a $1.43 million for the 11 months to May 31, 2026.

But costs were ballooning even faster as the business tried to scale. In the 11 months to May 31, this year, the cost of goods sold was $4.26m for gross loss of $2.83m and a negative gross margin of 198%.

Goterra had net losses of $5.04m in FY23, then $8.06m, and $11.74m over the next two years and $8.33m in the first 11 months of FY26.

Total expenses also rose as the company scaled, from $7.71 million in FY23 to $17.43 million in FY25.

Between June and September 2025, Goterra raised $4.3m via convertible note funding. The R&D tax incentive was a vital source of cash. The administrators identified R&D tax offsets of $5.97m ed in FY25 and $4.49 million in FY26. By May 31, accrued R&D revenue of around $4.5m represented about 77% of current assets, leaving the company’s liquidity vulnerable to the timing of the R&DTI

Get Advanced provided funds against its R&D tax incentive claim, with Goterra drawing $1.8m in January 2026, $500,000 on April 17 and $1.1m on April 22.

Goterra “implemented a minimum cash burn plan and began engaging with suppliers to manage cash flow and organise payment arrangements” during April and May as it explored a Series B raise, the administrator’s report said.

A strategic investor, named only as Company-S in the report, was expected to come on board, and Goterra lined up bridge financing from a related party, conditional on a signed term sheet from Company-S, to give the business runway to July.

But when the target date of May 29 arrived “Company-S had not provided a term sheet or other sufficient evidence to demonstrate that a strategic equity investment was reasonably likely to complete before the [Goterra’s] available cash runway expired” the report said.

Within a week, Teneo were appointed administrators.

They reduced Goterra’s two key operating sites at Hume in the ACT and Wetherill Park in Sydney to “care and maintenance” status. The sites stopped taking customer waste, existing waste products were cleared out and employee numbers were cut.

Total creditor claims sit at $11.73m, including $9.82m in secured claims, $796,960 in priority employee entitlements and $897,234 for unsecured creditors.

“It is too early to determine whether sufficient assets will be available to enable outstanding employee entitlements to be paid in full, however in a liquidation scenario, it is likely that employee entitlements claims will have a recovery shortfall,” the report says, even after $220,000 worth of entitlements are excluded under federal legislation.

Unsecured creditors will receive nothing, the report says.

Venture capital investors in Goterra include Flying Fox, Tenacious, Rampersand, Aussie Angels, Giant Leap, Investible and Club Investible. The total shareholding was valued at around $29 million.

Teneo says it formed a preliminary view that Goterra may have been insolvent from around January 2026, although that would require further investigation by the firm as liquidator. The report said preliminary investigations did not identify any offences by directors or others.

Goterra was named Startup Daily’s 2023 Best Sustainability Startup, and Most Innovative Startup the following year. Founder Olympia Yarger had been on the hunt for fresh funding for two years after a $10 million bridging round in 2023. Its modular “maggot robot” systems were used Brisbane’s Howard Smith Wharves entertainment precinct, while the City of Sydney trial hoped the system would turn up to 600 tonnes of food waste into animal feed and fertiliser, and the Hyatt Regency Sydned used it to cut the hotel’s carbon footprint.

A Goterra processing plant is also based at Barangaroo, processing food waste generated from the offices of the Lendlease office towers. The Weatherill Park facility supported Woolworths and its produce waste.

Food waste is directly responsible for 8% of carbon emissions globally and a third of all food produced is lost or wasted, costing the global economy around $940 billion annually.

Teneo says its costs for the liquidation will be $300,000, ex GST, with the six people involved paid between $975 and $470 an hour for a total 421.6 hours. That also involves 24.5 hours of administration support at $250 per hour

That comes after the same group at Teneo charged $199,340.50 for 251 hours of work as the voluntary administrators between June 3 and June 21 at an average rate of $793.97 per hour, then a further $151,839 for 215.9 hours of work between June 22 and the July 8 meeting $351,205 in total for the month.

Teneo says the estimated realisable value of Goterra’s assets is between $715,000 and $878,000.

Teneo did not respond to requests to comment following the July 8 creditors meeting.

The collapse of Goterra follows the 2024 of a similar Victorian business Bardee, which saw its parent company, parent company, Beyond AG, placed in liquidation following legal action over unpaid bills. The business was subsequently sold and continues to trade.