Dutch company, Meatable raised an additional $10 million in seed funding (previously raised $3.5 million). Investors include Taavet Hinrikus, CEO of TransferWise, Albert Wenger, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures, and a portion of the capital from the European Commission through its Eurostars Programme → a European Union fund, which supports innovative product development throughout Europe. https://cellbased.link/j34
Why We Care: Meatable is implementing a unique approach to cultivating cell based meat with a proprietary technology called, OPTi-OX, a form of genetic intervention that converts pluripotent stem cells into any desired cell type. This technology, according to Meatable, addresses challenges associated with cell based meat production:
- Faster Doubling Time: 20,000 strands of muscle fiber in 3-5 days with OPTi-OX
- Indefinite Life – Span: a single vial of stem cells sourced from a single umbilical cord proliferate indefinitely.
- Animal Free Serum: The cells grow off of E8, a completely animal free cell culture medium made up of amino acids, vitamins, minerals and salts.
$$$: According to a Medium article written by Meatable co-founder and CEO, Krijn de Nood, the influx of capital will enable Meatable to expand the cost-reduction and scaling teams with a goal to unveil the first prototype this summer.
Investments
Bond Pet Foods completed a seed funding round of $1.2 million. Investors include Lever VC, Agronomics, KBW Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, and Andante Asset Management. https://cellbased.link/oqy
- A logical first step for cellular agriculture is pet food: Instead of tissue engineering, Bond uses DNA from a heritage hen as the blueprint for protein development. Bond will use a microbial engineering technology to ferment chicken protein in yeast or bacteria. The final product will not be structured meat rather a paste that can be mixed into recipes.
- Nick Cooney, Founder and Managing Partner at Lever VC stated in a press release: “What makes us so excited about Bond Pet Foods is that it’s the first clean-meat company producing meat protein in a way that doesn’t require major technological breakthroughs to get to price parity with conventional meat.”
