“Clean Meat” start-up
SuperMeat pecks up $3M
in seed funding
S
uperMeat, the Israeli biotech and food-
tech start-up, announced in January
2018 that it has raised $3M in seed
funding and has formed a strategic
partnership with PHW, one of Europe’s largest
poultry producers, and an equity investor in
the company.
The recent seed round was led by US-based
venture capital fund New Crop Capital and
mission-oriented VC firm Stray Dog Capital.
Both firms are openly committed to investing
in more sustainable food systems and have
previously backed big names in the alternative
protein field such as Beyond Meat and
SunFed. This new round of funding comes
on the heels of a wildly successful Indiegogo
campaign which raised $230,000 in pre-orders
for SuperMeat’s clean meat products.
SuperMeat’s clean meat is produced by
growing cells that have been painlessly
AgriKultuur |AgriCulture
extracted from a chicken. The cells are
then grown in conditions that allow them
to thrive, forming high-quality chicken cuts.
This process puts an end to the industrial
need to mass produce animals for slaughter,
while eliminating exposure to animal waste
and food-borne illnesses; the potential
benefits for public health and animal welfare
are therefore considerable. At the same
time, clean meat is also highly beneficial for
the environment, with drastically reduced
carbon and ecological footprints compared
to current meat production methods.
According to research conducted by Oxford
and Amsterdam Universities, switching to
clean meat will allow a reduction of up to 98%
in greenhouse gas emissions, 99% in land
exploitation, and up to 96% in water usage.
With the recently secured funding, the Tel-
Aviv-based company expects to bring its
clean chicken products to market in the
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