February 6, 2019

Food tech startup Sustainable Bioproducts has closed a $33 million Series A from a selection of some of the top venture capital funds, and two of the largest food and agribusiness companies in the world.

Leading the round was 1955 Capital, the Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund founded by Andrew Chung. Also participating in the round were ADM Ventures, the venture unit of commodity giant, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM); Danone Manifesto Ventures, the venture unit of French food, beverage, and yogurt giant Danone; Lauder Partners; the Liebelson family office; and Breakthrough Energy Ventures – Bill Gates’ $1 billion fund, who’s backers include Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Michael Bloomberg.

Born as a research project under NASA, and based out of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago, Sustainable Bioproducts’ CEO Thomas Jonas states that the original aim was to study extremophile organisms – microbes that can live and thrive under extreme conditions.

This work led the team to study microbes living in the volcanic springs at Yellowstone National Park, and to the development of an innovative fermentation technology that enable the production of protein in a laboratory without negative environmental effects.

“Curiosity and a passion for exploration led us to Yellowstone, one of the harshest ecosystems in the world,” said Thomas Jonas, co-founder and CEO, Sustainable Bioproducts. “By observing how life optimizes the use of resources in this challenging environment, we have invented a way to make protein that is radically more efficient and gentler on our planet.”

Through the company’s process, high-protein extremophile microbes are fed starches or glycerin, which then rapidly multiply. The final product, which contains the nine essential amino acids considered key to the human diet, and which is hoped could one day replace animal-based proteins, can be formulated to be a solid, powder, or liquid, and can be either savory or sweet.

Clean Streak

The deepening of the connection between consumers and their food supply chains, along with a rising popularity of veganism, concerns over animal rights, and awareness around the hormones, antibiotic usage, and unsustainability inherent in the global livestock industry, have pushed many people to look toward alternative ways to get protein into their diet.

Meat production uses one third of the world’s fresh water and land surface, while also generating one fifth of all greenhouses gas emission. And as evidence mounts that the global animal protein production system is not sustainable, plant-based dairy and meat analog and lab-grown meat producers are both increasingly coming into the crosshairs of mission-driven and forward thinking investors.

Bill Gates is also a backer of Memphis Meats, which is working to produce clean beef, chicken, and duck meat in a laboratory setting.

Wild Type in April of last year, raised $3.5 million in funding through a round led by Spark Capital, with participation from Root Ventures, Mission Bay Capital, and a group of angel investors, to back the development of a tool to multiply animal cells to create “clean meat”.

In January of last year, Israel-based biotech startup SuperMeat raised a Seed round of $3 million backed by U.S.-based venture capital fund New Crop Capital, mission-focused venture capital firm Stray Dog Capital, and European poultry producer PHW.

This was followed in August by BluNalu, a newly launched cellular aquaculture startup, announced it has successfully raised $4.5 million in initial funding, and in October, Dutch cell-based meat startup Meatable announced it had closed on $3.5 million in funding led by BlueYard Capital, to advance its work to reprogram Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) to become pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), also called “master cells”, that have the ability to differentiate into muscle cells or fat cells indefinitely.

Demand for such technology is growing across all markets, however, Andrew Chung, managing director of 1955 Capital, noted that it will be from emerging markets where demand will be strongest.

“We have witnessed incredible growth in the demand for new proteins in recent years and believe Sustainable Bioproducts has the most compelling and efficient solution to satisfy this demand,” said Chung. “This demand will not only come from the West, but from the developing world where the need for protein will become more severe.”

~ Lynda Kiernan