New Age Meats, a Berkeley-based cultured meat startup, revealed on Monday that it had acquired $25 million in Series A funding, allowing it to begin manufacturing of its first product, a range of pig sausages, next year.
Current investors SOSV’s IndieBio, TechU Ventures, ff VC, and Siddhi Capital joined existing investor Hanwha Solutions of South Korea to lead the investment round.
Brian Spears, the company’s CEO, has a chemical engineering background and spent 12 years building research laboratory and industry automation before co-founding the company, which creates meat from animal cells, in 2018.
He told TechCrunch, “We want to establish a sustainable and ethical technique that gives the same flavors, smells, and experiences in a more inexpensive and accessible way.” “With the support of Hanwha and our other investors, we can pursue our goal of becoming the world’s largest and most innovative meat company.” With Series A, the firm will be able to treble its employees, develop R&D, and construct a 20,000-square-foot prototype manufacturing facility in Alameda. The investment comes after a $7 million seed round from a group of investors, including RXBAR founder Peter Rahal.
New Age Meats is starting with sausage because it is one of the items with the quickest time to market, but the business plans to expand into other meat categories such as beef and chicken in the future, according to Spears.
In 2022, he hopes to be able to bring his product to market, pending approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. He also expects demand for items coming from regions where pork is consumed in large quantities, such as Asia. As technology advances, more players are entering the cultured meat market. New Age is differentiating itself, according to Spears, by focusing on providing a scalable and inexpensive experience for people who enjoy eating meat.
While Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat were among the first to enter the meat alternative space, other companies have followed suit, focusing on cultured meat and attracting venture capital, such as Animal Alternative and Eat Just’s Good Meat, which announced another $97 million in funding last week.
Hanwha Solutions, which corresponded through email, stated its corporate objective agreed with New Age Meats’ and that the cell-based pork market has potential for growth.
Hanwha also predicted “rapid market growth” in the food tech industry, notably in the area of cultured meat, given global efforts to combat climate change.
The demand will be fueled by a growing awareness of healthy eating and animal rights, according to the business. “New Age Meats will help us broaden our commercial horizons with its experience in employing cell technology to generate cultured meats.”
