CellulaREvolution, a UK-based cell culturing startup, announced this week that it has raised a £1 million (~$1.37M USD) round of funding. Investors include CPT Capital, Stephan Schmidt, Orange Light Ventures, Northstar Ventures, North East Innovation Funds and the newly launched Northern Accelerator Seed Investment Fund (NASIF).
Founded in 2019, CellulaREvolution was spun off from Newcastle University. According to the company’s website, it is developing two main products that have applications in the creation of cell-cultured meat and in the therapeutics world:
- A synthetic peptide coating that allows for serum-free cell culturing. This, the company says will make it possible to eliminate animal-derived serum from the culturing process.
- A bioreactor that can continuously produce cells in a serum free environment in much smaller footprint. CellulaREvolution estimates that “1m2 of continuous cell production would require about 7000m2 when using traditional production processes. E.g. 1m2 versus a football pitch.”
Because of its technology, CellulaREvolution says that it can make cell-culturing more efficient and affordable. Getting the price of cell-cultured meat down is critical before it can get any mainstream acceptance.
Thankfully, there are a number of startups tackling the issue of cultured meat affordability. Just this week, Future Meat announced that it had raised $26.75 million and brought the price of its hybrid cell/plant-based chicken down to $7.50 per quarter pound to produce. And last month, Cultured Biosciences announced its cloud bioreactors have proven their capabilities of high-throughput mammalian cell cultures, which could help cultured meat startups achieve scale. Cell cultured meat startups Mirai and Vow have also raised funding this year.
The cultured meat space is downright frothy so far this year and it’s only February. Look for even more breakthroughs and funding news in the weeks to come.
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