December 20, 2019

By Lynda Kiernan

Australian vegan meat brand v2food has closed on an impressive A$35 million (US$24 million) in Series A funding led by Main Sequence Ventures and Horizon Ventures. Other participants in the round included Sequoia Capital China, and Marinya Capital, the Fairfax family’s investment fund. 

Launched in Sydney  in October of this year, v2food (the name alluding to a version 2 food system) is an innovative partnership between CSIRO’s Innovation Fund, managed by Sequence Ventures, a unit of the Australian government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda, and Competitive Foods Australia, the parent company of fast food brand, Hungry Jack’s.

Under the leadership of Nick Hazell, former research director of Masterfoods and PepsiCo, v2food is a sustainable, plant-based meat company with a mission to make delicious alternative meat accessible to all Australians by disrupting the country’s nascent plant-based category.

“Making meat alternatives from plants is not a new idea but at v2food we’ve taken it a step further,” said Nick Hazell, founder and CEO, v2food.

“We are on a journey to make plant-based food both taste better and be more sustainable. The protein substitutes available to date simply don’t taste as good as meat and they are not affordable.”

“We’ve drawn upon the best food, nutrition and sustainability science from CSIRO to develop a sustainable and nutritious product, with an unmatched texture and flavour.”

Through a partnership with Rebel Whopper, the startup launched its first product onto the Australian market last month, a plant-based burger developed with CSIRO that looks like, tastes, like, and cooks like beef, and which will be offered as a plant-based alternative to Hungry Jack’s traditional Whopper.

“There is a big shortfall between the amount of meat we produce today and the amount needed to feed the growing global population. There will be nearly 10 billion people on Earth by 2050,” said Hazell. “It’s imperative that we scale quickly because these global issues need immediate solutions.”

v2food plans to use A$20 million of the capital from this oversubscribed round to fund the building of a state-of-the-art research and production facility in Wodonga scheduled to begin operations in Australia in 2020. The company also plans to use the funds to establish a scalable domestic supply chain, to support new product launches over the coming year, and to eventually expand its reach across the Asia-Pacific region as part of its strategic growth plan.

– Lynda Kiernan is Editor with GAI Media and daily contributor to the GAI News and Agtech Intel platforms. If you would like to submit a contribution for consideration, please contact Ms. Kiernan at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.