Close Ad

The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Remilk

Better Dairy Raises £1.6M for Animal-Free Dairy Production

U.K.-based startup Better Dairy announced today it has raised £1.6 million (~$2.1 million USD) in seed funding for its animal-free dairy production. As first reported by TechCrunch, the round was led by Happiness Capital with participation from CPT Capital, Stray Dog Capital, Veg Capital, and undisclosed angel investors. 

Better Dairy says it will use the funding to increase R&D efforts of its animal-free dairy production, which uses yeast fermentation and biology to produce dairy products that are “molecularly identical” to dairy made from animals. Speaking to TC, Better Dairy cofounder Jevan Nagarajah likened the process to beer brewing, with the end result being “large vats of dairy instead of beer.”

The company has produced its first lab samples. The big challenge, Nagarajah said, will be scaling up manufacturing capabilities in order to create a product that has price parity with traditional dairy. 

That’s a challenge a growing number of companies are tackling right now. But while there are plenty of plant-based options available right now (and relatively comparable in price to traditional dairy), 2020 has also surfaced a number of companies making dairy in the lab. Perfect Day, which uses fermentation to make animal-free dairy microbes, is probably the most well-known name at this point in that area. The company already has a product, Brave Robot Ice Cream, in the market via its Urgent Company imprint. Remilk, which just raised $11.3 million, is based in Israel and also uses microbial fermentation to make cow’s milk without the cow.

For its part, Better Dairy hopes to commercialize its first products by early 2022. Longer term, the company has big plans for food products outside of dairy.

Remilk Raises $11.3 Million for its Microbial Fermented, Animal-Free Dairy

Remilk, an Israeli startup that makes animal-free dairy, announced yesterday that it has raised $11.3 million in Series A funding (hat tip to CTech). The round was led by fresh.fund, with participation from CPT Capital, ourCrowd, ProVeg, Hochland, Tnuva and Tempo.

Remilk creates its non-dairy dairy through a process of microbial fermentation. The result is the production of real milk proteins that the company says creates milk that is identical to cow’s milk without the need for any actual cows.

If this sounds familiar, that’s because microbial fermentation is the same process Perfect Day uses to create its own animal-free dairy proteins. Perfect Day, however has been around since 2014, raised $361 million, got FDA approval for its whey-free protein, and has its product to market through the Brave Robot ice cream brand.

Fermentation is a hot topic in food tech these days. In September, the Good Food Institute issued a report calling fermentation the third pillar of alternative protein. As we wrote at the time:

In the last five years there’s been a “Cambrian explosion” of companies in this segment, Nate Crosser, start-up growth specialist at GFI and author of the report, told me in an interview this week. By mid-2020 there were 44 fermentation companies globally working on alternative proteins, up from 23 companies in 2018.

Some of those companies include Change Foods, which is making animal-free cheese through fermentation, and a company called Melibo,which is using precision fermentation to create honey without the bees.

In addition to being a part of the fermentation trend, Remilk is also among a wave a food tech startups coming out of Israel. Companies there are doing really innovative things with plant, and cell-based meat (and chicken) as well as kitchen robotics.