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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

alternative fish

Investment in Alternative Seafood Startups Totaled $175 Million in 2021, Up 92% From Previous Year

According to a new report published by the Good Food Institute, investment in alternative seafood companies totaled $175 million in 2021. The total represented a 92% jump over 2020.

GFI’s new report, which looks at the entire alternative seafood category across plant-based, cell-cultured, and fermentation-based products, said 2021 investment brought the total invested in the category to $313 million from 2013 through 2021. Cultivated seafood startups commanded two-thirds of all investment in alt-seafood last year at $115 million, compared with $58 million invested in plant-based seafood startups and $2 million in fermentation-based seafood.

A few large investments dominated investment in alternative seafood startups, including a $60 million convertible note for Blue Nalu, which the company used to invest in their commercial production facility. Another $34 million was raised by Finless Foods, a startup developing plant-based and cultivated seafood products.

While a near-doubling of capital raised is impressive, the total for alt-seafood is just a fraction of the total amount for cell-cultivated meat investments. According to GFI, the total cultivated meat investment in 2021 was $1.38 billion, nearly 8x the total for the entire alt-seafood category and 12 times the size of the cultivated seafood. It’s worth noting, however, that a large chunk of that $1.38 billion was capital raised by a small handful of companies raising late-stage growth capital, including $467 million in Series F funding raised by plant-based/cultivated meat pioneer Eat Just.

Total deals were up 20% in 2021, jumping from 20 in 2020 to 24 in 2021. While nine investors were active in the category with two or more investments in alt-seafood, one investor – Big Idea Ventures – stood out with six investments in the alt-seafood space. Big Idea invested across all three categories, plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation. Aqua Cultured, a fermentation-based seafood startup that raised a $2.1 million pre-seed round from BIG and others, was the lone fermentation-based startup that raised funding in 2021 according to GFI.

In Sweden, Plant-based Meat Is Getting a Bit Fishy

It’s no secret the alternative-protein market is skyrocketing in terms of both growth and new innovations. Already today we’ve written about Motif Foodworks’ efforts to make better fat for plant-based burgers and Japanese startup DAIZ’s recent $6 million funding round. 

And here’s another one to watch: a Swedish startup called Hooked, which is developing the “world’s first” plant-based shredded salmon. Food Navigator ran a profile of the company today, detailing how the company wants to address the unsustainable nature of the seafood industry and why they chose shredded salmon and tuna as their first plant-based products. 

Demand for seafood is growing — and harming the health of the planet at the same time, Hooked founders Emil Wasteson and Tom Johanson told Food Navigator. 

“By consuming Hooked’s products, consumers can enjoy seafood without any of these negative consequences. We are meeting the rapidly increased seafood demand with healthy and tasty alternatives with a production that can scale without harming the planet.”

Those products include plant-based shredded salmon and tuna, which are made from soya protein isolate and meant to be used in pastas, pizzas, wraps, and more.

‘We want to mimc the real nutritional value of [conventional seafood]. Most of the plant-based meat the you see on the market…may have good texture and taste, but the nutrition is not there,” said Peter Liu, Hooked’s CTO.

Hooked is focusing on European markets to start, though they may find a greater demand for their seafood products if the salmon and tuna do indeed deliver on taste, nutrition, texture, and price point.

If 2019 was the year alternative protein infiltrated the mainstream, 2020 is shaping up to be the year companies improve these products, both in terms of taste and variety.