25 Mushroom Companies to Watch in 2025

This is the third consecutive year I’ve compiled a list of ‘Mushroom Companies to Watch’ for the new year - the list isn’t mean to be a ‘ranking’, and of course there are hundreds of other companies that could have easily been included in a project like this. My main criteria for the list prioritized companies making a tangible and outsized impact in the mushroom space, and in particular those that are making waves without the benefit of large investments, PR teams, or hype but rather through organic community influence and adoption.

1. Culture Shrooms

Culture Shrooms is a hub for everything mushrooms. Their flagship brick and mortar location is in the heart of Long Beach, California, and they have established themselves as a bonafide powerhouse in the mushroom community through events, workshops, and festivals that have attracted tens of thousands of people to learn about mushroom cultivation, mycelium materials, and the power of fungi and community. They serve as a ‘Third Space’ for the 21st Century; a place where people can socialize and be in community together that encourages healthy habits rather than potentially deleterious ones. Culture Shrooms has a second location in Arcata, California.

They’ve also got a number of mushroom products for sale in store and online, including their epic Mushroom Cold Brew Coffee - here’s me enjoying one of their cold brew coffees with some of the Culture Shrooms team at the incredible Oklahoma Mushroom Festival in October of 2024

2. Flora Funga Podcast

Flora Funga Podcast is a weekly podcast and a daily mushroom multimedia platform that’s hosted and produced by Kaitlyn Kuehn (“KK”), a plant biologist looking to bridge the gap between plants, fungi, and humans. This platform is a truly prolific one, with daily content on TikTok and across other socials that helps to translate rigorous scientific mushroom research into digestible info for Gen Z and people outside of the ivory tower. KK does a terrific job of balancing being engaging and entertaining while raising the bar on citizen mycology education and communication to the broader public.

3. Juncao World, China

‘Juncao Technology’ is a method for growing mushrooms using dried, chopped grass. It was developed in China by Professor Lin Zhanxi of Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University in the 1980s. The technology is environmentally friendly and has helped small-scale farmers grow mushrooms without cutting down trees.

In particular what caught my attention with Juncao technology is their ‘magic grass’ that is used to make mushroom farming easier for people in developing nations such as in Sub-Saharan Africa, the South Pacific and elsewhere. There are numerous projects underway around the world to help people learn to cultivate mushrooms as a means of sustainable development, economic opportunity and resilience in the face of climate and financial pressures.

It’s long been the operating theory of Mycopreneur Podcast that ‘mycopreneurs’ will be the ones to most effectively help implement regenerative local economies that collectively comprise a global, decentralized future of prosperity for people and planet. Juncao Technology is helping to foster exactly this type of growth.

From our sponsors: Ever tried mushroom coffee? I drink my fair share of coffee, and like many out there in our 30’s or older, frequent caffeine intake doesn’t always provide the best return on investment - so these days I drink my first regular cup of coffee in the morning and then switch to mushroom coffee for the rest of the day - well, except for my 2 pm espresso, that’s a non-negotiable. 

If you haven’t tried it yet, check out Mycroboost mushroom coffee and get on the mushroom coffee train with me.

4. Eti Farms Global

Eti Farms Global is the leading mushroom startup in Lagos, Nigeria - a megametropolis with an estimated 28 million people living in the greater area. Founded by Nigerian woman mycopreneur Etimbuk Imuk, this farm has produced over 100,000 packs of mushrooms and provides many of the shops and restaurants serving fresh mushrooms in Lagos with their supply. They have been recognized by several African business and entrepreneurship publications, and are quickly emerging as a global success story.

5. Mycopunks

Mycopunks is the leading mycology education and cultivation supply outfit in the UK, and manages to effortlessly pull off being community-centered, approachable, and highly professional and sophisticated as an organization. They have the sort of business acumen where everybody feels like they know them while still running an internationally prolific mushroom supply business at scale - with over 20,000 happy customers and counting, this collective of mycopreneurs shows no signs of slowing down.

Check out this video overview of 25 Mushroom Companies to Watch in 2025 (Part 1)

From our sponsors: If you’re reading this in the U.S., which many of you no doubt are, check out our partners at Full Send Organicks for all of your mycology research and education needs. You can meet the founder of Full Send Organicks at the weekly Mycopreneur Incubators, the invite to which can be found at the bottom of this newsletter. Pop over to the site linked just below here and check out their huge library of spores and research equipment. Follow them on socials at @fullsend_organicks on IG and the same handle on TikTok.

Key trends for the mushroom world in 2025:

<sup>More 'Third Spaces' built around mushroom enthusiasm and interests;
Culture Shrooms in Long Beach and Arcata is a great example of this; fewer and fewer people are opting to drink alcohol as their primary social lubricant (though of course this culture still exists, it is being significantly undercut by people seeking healthier alternatives) - mushroom community spaces are popping up around this, with recent hubs opened in England (covered by BBC), Denver, Mexico City, and elsewhere around the world.

More mushroom journalism; look at the cannabis space and consider how many publications, platforms, influencers and journalists are covering that space - now think about how many people and platforms you know exclusively or predominantly covering mushrooms. Mushrooms are absolutely in vogue and are only going to rise in profile - as such, more independent journalism and platforms will cover this largely overlooked but rapidly developing space. This influx of new independent journalists will help dispel some of the unscrupulous marketing tactics and industry practices in the mushroom supplement space, such as 'fairy dusting' (putting in a negligible amount of a trendy mushroom and filling the rest of the product with other vitamins or herbs) or mislabeling a supplement as a mushroom supplement when it contains mycelium (and if you think they're the same thing, show a picture of myceliated oats to a consumer vs. a picture of a mushroom and ask them to point to the mushroom)

More attention paid to global trends -
China produces more than 90% of the world's mushroom supply and is actively investing in many developing nations to empower people to cultivate mushrooms - there are many trends we can identify in the Chinese mushroom industry and culture that can be leveraged to help foment a homegrown culture in North America, Europe, and elsewhere.

Psilocybin mushroom interest will continue to proliferate in North America, Europe, and elsewhere - home cultivation technology is ubiquitous, information on how to safely grow and consume them is crowd sourced - including in many print materials offline - and community-led initiatives are dominating top down prohibitive messaging. Investing in education, transparency and community infrastructure around this process is where the smart money goes, though this community model doesn't need to be mutually exclusive to a more regulated industry; trying to stamp out the community model is a fools errand, but recreation / medicalization / research are all compatible, if not necessarily profitable.</sup>

^{Before you go, check out this Tremella Extract from our sponsors at Real Mushrooms. Tremella is one of my favorite medicinal mushroomms, and one that hasn’t been widely recognized in the west yet in the same way that Lion’s Mane and Reishi mushrooms are beginning to be. Tremella has many health benefits, including for skin, gut health, and energy - this is one of the most popular mushrooms in China, which has a 4,000 year old tradition around medicinal mushrooms and currently produces 90% of the world’s supply, for good reason -}

Today’s Mycopreneur Incubator

Mycopreneur Incubator (on Zoom): Jan 16, 2025 04:00 PM East Coast U.S. / 1:00 PM West Coast U.S.

Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84716804457?pwd=CJkGF5qbX7xHgq4DP7afXZCbo6ciWy.1

Meeting ID: 847 1680 4457 Passcode: 262678

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