Dutch cultured meat startup Meatable announced today that it has raised a $47 million Series A round of funding. Investors include Dr. Rick Klausner, Section 32, Dr. Jeffrey Leiden, and DSM Venturing, with participation from existing investors including BlueYard Capital, Agronomics, Humboldt, and Taavet Hinrikus. This brings Meatable’s total funding raised so far to $60 million.
Founded in 2018, Meatable’s technology allows it to grow meat from a single cell quickly, without the need for the controversial fetal bovine serum. As we wrote back in 2019:
They do this by using pluripotent stem cells, which can proliferate faster than regular stem cells and are malleable, meaning they can be coaxed to turn into any type of animal cell (muscle, fat, etc). Meatable claims that with its unique technology it can make large batches of animal tissue cells in a matter of days to weeks, whereas most companies need months.
All that speed comes at a cost, however. Meatable told TechCrunch that its meat currently costs $10,000 per pound. Obviously a price that high is untenable, but thankfully, there are a number of startups around the world working to bring the price of cultured meat down through various methods. In Israel, Future Meat announced this year that it has brought the price of its chicken down to $7.50 per quarter pound, a big milestone in the industry. If current industry predictions hold true, cultured meat could reach price parity with animal meat in five years.
Meatable’s funding continues the funding hot streak for cultured meat startups in 2021. Other cultured meat companies that have received funding rounds so far this year include BlueNalu, CellulaREvolution, and fellow Dutch startup Mosa Meat.
Meatable says that it will use its new funds to advance small scale production at the Biotech Campus Delft and diversify its product lineup.
Leave a Reply