Israeli cell based meat company, Aleph Farms, completes $12 million Series A funding round led by Singapore-based venture fund VisVires New Protein (VVNP). Additional investors include Cargill, M-Industry (the industrial group of Swiss retailer Migros), Strauss Group, Peregrine Ventures, CPT Capital, Jays Third Eight and New Crop Capital.

The Edge: Aleph Farms has developed a unique bio-engineering platform in collaboration with Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa to grow meat as a complete tissue structure that includes muscle, fat, blood vessels, and connective tissue. This 3D technology platform enables Aleph to grow steaks with the same muscle tissue structure and mouthfeel as actual animal tissue. According to the company press release, “the injection of capital will allow Aleph Farms to accelerate product development of its slaughter-free meat and to transform Aleph’s prototype (released last December) into a commercial product.” http://cellbased.link/a7

Why We Care: This is not the first investment global meat giant, Cargill has made in the cell based meat space. The company has also participated in a $20 million funding round of Memphis Meats, and last December they invested in a 188,000 sq. ft. facility dedicated to researching and developing the future of protein.

Advancements

German based company, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany (not to be confused with the U.S. based company Merck & Co.) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed a cooperative agreement to intensively pursue innovation, digitalization and materials research as it relates to space exploration. Part of this agreement includes research and development of biotechnology required to produce genuine meat grown in vitro. http://cellbased.link/mw

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, which also operates under the name MilliporeSigma, is already a large scale supplier of cell culture media, bioreactors and specializes in process design for cell culture growth and harvest.

🐓 Future Fields is the newest cell based meat company to hit the scene. Based in Canada, Future Fields is focusing their initial stage of research and development on animal-free serum as a media supplement to foster robust cell growth. Beyond that, the company has plans to develop cell based chicken. http://cellbased.link/h9

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