Dutch lab-grown meat startup, Meatable, has raised $47M (approx €39.68M) in its Series A round of funding. With this, the company’s total funding has reached $60M (approx €50.66M), to date. The round was led by Dr. Rick Klausner, Section 32, Dr. Jeffrey Leiden, and DSM Venturing. In addition to that, existing investors including BlueYard Capital, Agronomics, Humboldt, and Taavet Hinrikus, also participate in this round.
According to the company, the investors in this round recognise the positive impact cultivated meat will have on climate change, as well as see the trillion-dollar potential of the cultivated meat marketplace, and are betting on Meatable to solve the industry’s scalability and speed-to-market challenges with its technology.
Dr. Rick Klausner, former director of the US National Cancer Institute and former Executive Director of Global Health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, sees great potential in Meatable and its Opti-Ox technology.
In a recent interview with MIT Technology Review, Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and founder of Breakthrough Energy, while talking about his book ‘How to Avoid a Climate Disaster’, suggested that “all rich countries should move to 100 per cent synthetic beef,” in order to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions.
Use of the funds
The raised capital will help the company to advance small-scale production at the Biotech Campus Delft and to diversify its product portfolio.
Krijn de Nood, CEO and co-founder of Meatable, says, “With this funding, we believe we are well on our way to bringing our first products to market to sustainably satisfy the world’s appetite for meat.”
One cell to change the world
Founded in 2018 by Krijn de Nood (CEO), Daan Luining (CTO), and Dr. Mark Kotter (principal inventor of Opti-Ox technology), Meatable is creating meat in a sustainable manner. The company uses a patented Opti-Ox cell technology that enables growing a single cell under controlled differentiation into any cell type.
According to Meatable, industrial farming strains the Earth’s already limited land and water resources and is also responsible for 14-18 per cent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Cultivated meat has the potential to use up to 96 per cent less water and 99 per cent less land than industrial farming, and with energy-efficient processes, it could decrease emissions associated with meat production.
Current protocols can take months, but Meatable’s technology can produce large batches of the cells needed to make meat in a matter of days to weeks, whereas it takes years to grow a live animal. Only one cell is needed to start the process. The cell is sourced from a real animal in a completely painless way – and because it comes from an animal, the meat that can be made with it is real meat, not a highly processed substitute.
Krijn de Nood believes, “To be able to meet the growing demand for meat worldwide, we need breakthrough solutions. Cultivated meat has the potential to continue to produce the product we love – meat – using a much more efficient production process.”
Meatable’s mission?
The Dutch company aims to produce cultivated meat, for which no animals are slaughtered, fewer GHG emissions are released, and significantly less land and water are required. And, unlike plant-based alternatives, the end-product will provide the full experience of eating actual meat, with the same texture, taste, and nutritional benefits.
After successfully completing its first pork showcase product, Meatable is currently focused on the further development of cultivated pork and beef. The company’s technology is adaptable to any cell-based species, including cows, pigs, sheep, and fish, giving the company a great opportunity for further product development.
Previous fundraise
Earlier this year in February, the lab-grown meat startup raised an additional €2M in funding from London-listed Agronomics.
In December 2019, Meatable raised an additional $10M (nearly €9M) in seed funding. The funding round was led by an existing investor base including BlueYard Capital, with supplemental funds from angel investors including Taavet Hinrikus, co-founder of TransferWise, and Albert Wenger, Managing Partner at Union Square Ventures. The European Commission also contributed funds through its Eurostars Programme.
Prior to that in October 2018, Meatable secured $3.5M in funding led by BlueYard Capital with participation from Atlantic Food Labs and Future Positive Capital, Backed VC, and several angel investors like Charles Songhurst and Jörg Mohaupt.
01
Dutch at Slush 2024: Meet the four 4TU startups who are fundraising at the world’s most founder-focused event