June 6, 2018

Led by Japanese seed and early stage-focused venture fund Real Tech Capital, Integriculture Inc., a cellular agriculture and clean meat (cultured meat) company, has secured ¥300 million (US$2.7 million) in seed financing. Other investors include Beyond Next Ventures, A-FIVE (Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Fund Corporation for Innovation, Value-chain and Expansion Japan – a Japanese government fund), MTG Co., Ltd., euglena Co., Ltd., Dr. Hiroaki Kitano (CEO of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.).

The company will use the funds to build out their R&D, and their first commercial facilities based on Integriculture’s  patented large-scale cell culture system.

Integriculture aims to make clean meat affordable to general consumers, and to solve the sustainability, food security, and public health problems associated with modern factory farming method for meat production. To do this, the company’s aim is to drive the price of cultured cells below $1 per gram and ultimately, to achieve price parity with conventionally produced meat.

Slew of Recent Investments in the Sector

This year has seen a significant number of investments in lab-grown “clean meat”. With global protein consumption expected to climb at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.7 percent, reaching 943 million tons by 2054, demand for clean meat is only expected to grow, especially as it is seen as more environmentally friendly.

The market potential is bolstered by recent research showing a large number of U.S. and UK consumers are open to eating clean meat – 40 percent in the U.S.. In an interesting twist the segment of consumers in the survey most interested in sampling lab grown meat were vegans, at 60 percent.

Recent investment activity includes:

Future Meat Technology, an Israeli startup focusing on developing next-generation technologies for the efficient commercial production of lab-grown animal fat and muscle cells recently announced a $2.2 million Seed Round.

SuperMeat – another Israeli clean meat player that has added follow-on funding to its Seed Round, bringing the round to $4 million with the addition of investors from the U.S. and Asia.

Wild Type – a company that has developed a process for cultured salmon, grabbed $3.5 million in funding, led by Spark Capital, with participation from Root Ventures, Mission Bay Capital, and a group of angel investors.

David Nitchman, GAI Media