Main Sequence Ventures has contributed to a $53.3m series B-plus for V2Food, having already backed the initial $55m series B round last October.
V2Food, an Australia-based meat-free food products developer, has secured A$72m ($53.3m) in series B-plus funding from investors including Main Sequence Ventures, the deeptech fund manager of national research agency CSIRO.
Impact investor Astanor Ventures led the round, which also attracted Temasek-linked impact fund ABC World Asia and China Renaissance affiliate Huaxing Growth Capital.
An unnamed strategic investor, described as “China’s leading e-commerce platform for services” – likely to be Meituan, though this could not be confirmed – also took part in the transaction.
V2Food secured $55m in an initial series B round in October 2020, when Main Sequence Ventures also invested together with fresh food distributor Esenagro, ABC World Asia, Altitude Partners, China Renaissance, Horizons Ventures, Marinya Capital, Novel Investments, Sequoia Capital China and Temasek.
Founded in May 2019, V2Food extracts proteins from legumes and produces plant-based mince that looks, tastes and cooks the same as meat.
The spinout was co-founded by CSIRO, Main Sequence Ventures and Competitive Foods Australia, which operates the Burger King franchise in Australia, initially to develop a vegetarian version of the latter’s Whopper burger.
You can learn more about V2Food and Main Sequence’s work in our Talking Tech Transfer interview with Mike Zimmerman.
Main Sequence Ventures led a $23.8m series A round in November 2019, with participation from Sequoia Capital China and Marinya Capital.
Competitive Foods Australia had supplied an undisclosed amount of seed financing in October 2019.
