SuperMeat is being backed by the U.S.-based venture capital fund New Crop Capital and mission-oriented VC firm Stray Dog Capital, in addition to the strategic investment from PHW, one of Europe’s largest poultry producers.
An Israeli biotech and food-tech startup, SuperMeat that develops lab-made chicken meat has raised $3 million in seed funding.
SuperMeat is being backed by the U.S.-based venture capital fund New Crop Capital and mission-oriented VC firm Stray Dog Capital, in addition to the strategic investment from PHW, one of Europe’s largest poultry producers.
Putting simply, the process involves feeding the cells the correct nutrients to produce muscle and fat, as would ordinarily happen if they would have grown inside an animal’s body. “The potential benefits for public health and animal welfare are considerable,” says the SuperMeat CEO and co-founder Ido Savir.
The company also cites research conducted by Oxford and Amsterdam Universities that says switching to clean meat will allow a reduction of up to 98 percent in greenhouse gas emissions, 99 percent in land exploitation, and up to 96 percent in water usage. Meanwhile, the demand for meat is projected to double by 2050.
However, SuperMeat has a number of major hurdles to cross, in terms of the core science of growing meat in a lab that actually tastes good and for developing a manufacturing process that would enable these “clean meat” farms to scale and at a cost that can compete with animal-reared meat.
The company has put together a group of experts to think about scalability from the get-go. They include people from the pharmaceutical industry with knowledge of growing cells in a lab and nutrients needed to cultivate them, along with other scientists, food engineers and chefs.
Commenting on the new partnership with SuperMeat, PHW-Gruppe’s CEO Peter Wesjohann said: “We at PHW have time and again left the beaten path in conducting our business. This approach not only facilitates the development of best-in-class animal welfare concepts in our core poultry business, but will also lead to the strengthening of our vegan product portfolio, confirming our leading role in the global consumer trend towards a cleaner, more protein-rich diet.”
