October 4, 2018

Dutch cell-based meat startup Meatable announced it has closed on $3.5 million in funding led by BlueYard Capital, with participation from Atlantic Food Labs, Future Positive Capital, Backed VC, and angel investors including Charles Songhurst and Jörg Mohaupt.

Usually, producers of lab-grown or cell-based meats have based their production methods on using the cell tissues from an animal – not requiring the slaughter of that animal. However, those same companies often feed these cells with fetal bovine serum, sourced from slaughtered animals, therefore negating any possible claim to being “slaughter-free”.

Utilizing a novel patent developed by scientists at  Cambridge and Stanford Universities, and breakthrough stem cell technologies, Meatable has a vision to overcome the challenge of making truly slaughter-free meat from a single cell.

Daan Luining, chief technology officer for Meatable, explained the company’s method to FoodNavigator-USA. When a calf is born, the blood from the detached umbilical cord (which would normally be thrown away) is collected. This blood is the source of Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) which are isolated in the lab. These cells are effectively reprogrammed by Meatable to become pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), also called “master cells”, that have the ability to differentiate into muscle cells or fat cells indefinitely.

“Serum is out the door for us. We don’t need it in any way,” Daan Luining, Meatable’s chief technology officer, told Business Insider.

Through the use of a single cell from a cow, chicken, or a pig, Meatable is able to produce clean and ‘guilt-free’ meat in only three weeks.

“In conjunction with the work of Professor Roger Pedersen at Stanford University, the technology my team has developed overcomes the scalability issues that have been holding back progress in this field,” said Dr. Mark Kotter, neurosurgery clinician scientist and lecturer at University of Cambridge and inventor of the patented Meatable technology. “The cell lines we’ve developed proliferate indefinitely and produce millions of identical cells, at unprecedented purities and within a very short timeframe. The result is genuine tissue that does not require fetal bovine serum to grow — the standard cellular medium upon which cells usually feed — which has been one of the biggest barriers to producing meat at scale.”

Luining states that Meatable is truly disrupting the ‘food production paradigm’ by aligning production practices that ensure the welfare of humans, animals, and the planet at the same time.

“Our products are completely sustainable and slaughter-free, and aim to decrease the meat industry’s footprint while increasing food security and never sacrificing on taste,” he noted. “Though the cell-based meat market is still in its early stages, our novel production methods are jumpstarting the process to creating affordable alternatives to traditional meat for consumers.”

Meatable’s answer to multiple existing challenges holding back the lab-grown meat business has also attracted investors interested in the future of cell-based meat production.

“We look forward to supporting Meatable on its mission to re-create meat from animal cells and become a key player in a post-animal economy,” said Jason Whitmire, general partner at BlueYard Capital and member of the Meatable Board of Directors. “We believe Meatable’s unique IP and team experience give it defensibility and a head start in solving the greatest scalability challenges of this exciting and emerging market.”

Having only recently launched, Luining told FoodNavigator-USA that Meatable plans to use the funds gained to help recruit new team members, add new partners, and support its plan to commercialize its lab-grown meat within three years.

-Lynda Kiernan