August 2, 2017

Redwood City, California-based Impossible Foods announced it has raised $75 million in a round led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, Temasek, and including Open Philanthropy Project, Bill Gates, Khosla Ventures, and Horizon Ventures.

Building on previous rounds including a $108 million round raised in 2015 that was led by UBS and included Viking Global Investors, Khosla Ventures, Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, and Horizons Ventures, the investment arm for Hong Kong businessman, Li Ka-shing, this round brings Impossible Foods’ total funding to $274 million over the short life of the company.

Founded in 2011 by Patrick Brown – a professor of biochemistry at Stanford for 25 years and  co-founder of Kite Hill, a nut milk and cheese product company, Impossible Foods produces a line of next generation meat and cheese products made solely from plants that contain no cholesterol, hormones, or antibiotics. The company’s flagship product is a plant-based, meatless burger that contains soy leghemoglobin – a protein that carries “heme”, an iron-rich molecule that is naturally present in all animals and plants.

The main driver and mission behind Impossible Foods, and for many investors that are making commitments to the plant-based food segment, is the development of foods using modern science and technology that can sustainably meet the needs of an expanding global population with a much smaller environmental footprint than meat from animals.

“It turns out that finding a sustainable way to make massive amounts of heme from plants is a critical step in solving the world’s greatest environmental threat,” said Brown in a company statement. “Our scientists spent so much time and effort studying a single molecule — heme — because heme is what makes meat taste like meat.”

Meatless Milestones

This latest round follows some notable milestones for the company.

In March of this year the startup announced the launch of its first large-scale production facility in Oakland, California, which will enable the company to produce a minimum of 1 million pounds of plant-based meat per month when fully on-line.

Within its first year, the facility will be able to produce enough to feed 4 million people per month, raising the company’s production capacity by 250 times compared to previous output from its location in Redwood and a small facility located in New Jersey.

Then in May of this year the company issued its first sustainability report offering comprehensive analysis of the company’s environmental mission, its flagship product, the Impossible Burger, and its expanding team.

“We are integrating sustainability into day-to-day operations wherever possible, into every aspect of our long-term strategy, and, of course, our products,” said Company Founder Brown in a press release announcing the report. “Our goal is to set a new standard for transparency in the food industry, from our ingredients and methods to our environmental impact — and we welcome your feedback.”

Most recently, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. Patent 9,700,067 covering Impossible Foods’ technology involving the use of leghemoglobin in the production of plant-based meat. And although the company has another 100 patents pending and has future plans to roll out additional products, its focus remains heavily on commercializing its meatless burger.

Currently served at approximately 20 U.S. restaurants, Impossible Foods’ plans for its meatless burger to be served in more than 1,000 locations within a year including retail outlets and in international markets. In 2014, the company secured its first “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) certification for the use of soy leghemoglobin as an ingredient, and plans to submit an updated GRAS notice about frequency of consumption to show that high rates of consumption of the protein is safe and carries a very low risk of allergenicity.

-Lynda Kiernan

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