Australia cultured meat start-up gets $49m Series A

It is being touted as the largest-ever Series A round in the cultured meat industry. Toyota Ventures, Square Peg Capital, Grok Ventures, Cavallo Ventures, Peakbridge, Tenacious Ventures, HostPlus Super, NGS Super and Pavilion Capital. Blackbird, Grok, and Square Peg are existing investors.

Vow is currently expanding its manufacturing capacity with a new factory and launching its first brand, Mosel, in Singapore. The Morsel line includes an artificial version of Japanese-style quail that is said to have unami flavours and a difficult-to-achieve light texture.

The three-year-old company claims to have one of the largest cultured meat facilities globally and cites “massive internal expansion” in terms of new divisions and product teams. The fresh capital will be used for product development, manufacturing expansion, and hiring.

Vow recently entered into an R&D partnership with Nourish Ingredients, a local alternative protein start-up that uses synthetic biology to produce animal-free fats that recreate the flavours and textures of meat. Nourish raised a USD 28.6m Series A last month led by Hong Kong’s Horizons Ventures and featuring Hostplus.

“When Vow was founded, we knew to change the way billions eat we had to do more than recreate what we know,” Vow CEO and co-founder George Peppou said in a statement. “By inventing new meats that are tastier, more nutritious and serve functions traditional meats can't, we can have an enormous impact.”

Prosperity7 and Toyota described their thesis for Vow in food security terms, with the latter saying the company has the potential to meet the food demands of a rising global population while reducing the impact of food production on the environment.

“Every choice Vow has made in its approach is thoughtfully aimed to accelerate acceptance and commercialisation of cell-cultured protein, including the deep application of technology and expanding the box to include thousands of cell lines to optimise taste, nutrition, and accelerate cell growth and cost down,” said Aysar Tayeb, an executive managing director at Prosperity7.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Cleantech
• Early-stage
• Australia
• Blackbird Ventures
• Prosperity7 Ventures
• Food