Technion-linked cultured meat developer has raised a series B round that took its overall funding to $118m.
Aleph Farms, an Israel-based cultured meat developer exploiting research from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, has raised $105m in a series B funding round featuring a consortium of food producers including Thai Union, BRF, CJ CheilJedang, Strauss Group and Cargill.
The round was led by consumer-focused private equity firm L Catterton, which invested via its growth fund, and also featured venture capital firms DisruptAD, Skyviews Life Science, VisVires New Protein, Peregrine Ventures and CPT Capital.
Founded in 2017, Aleph Farms has developed a technology to produce meat from non-genetically modified stem cells extracted from a cow, using a 3D tissue engineering platform.
The company was able to produce the first cell-cultured thin-cut steak in 2018 and the first cell-cultured ribeye earlier this year.
Aleph Farms was formed within Strauss Group’s food-tech incubator The Kitchen, building on research by co-founder and chief scientific adviser Prof Shulamit Levenberg.
This round takes the total funding raised by Aleph Farms to $118m, it said. The capital will boost the company’s global commercialisation plan and the expansion of its portfolio of products with the addition of new types of animal protein.
The funding will also be used to scale up the company’s manufacturing capacity, grow its international operations and expand its technology platform ahead of an initial market launch scheduled for 2022.
Aleph Farms received $12m in 2019 from investors including Cargill, Strauss Group and food and homecare product supplier M-Industry. Prior to this, the company had secured $2.25m in funding from The Kitchen, Peregrine Ventures, CPT Capital and New Crop Capital in 2017.
Didier Toubia, co-founder and chief executive of Aleph Farms, said: “This additional capital from top-tier partners with unparalleled experience and expertise brings us significantly closer to our vision of providing secure and unconditional access to high-quality nutrition to anyone, anytime, anywhere.”
– A version of this article first appeared on our sister site, Global Corporate Venturing.