This week in foodtech: cultured meat is still a hot topic

Image credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch

If you’re adventurous with your diet, or just want to keep up with the rapidly evolving food tech industry, here’s a roundup of this week’s stories and some notable news we weren’t able to cover.

Bringing Home the Bacon

Big news came from across the Atlantic, where British cultured meat production start-up Higher Steaks raised $30 million and changed its name to Uncommon. Balderton Capital and Lowercarbon Capital co-led the round.

The cultured meat segment of the alternative protein industry is among those that often has strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps it is because they hope that the The US government will catch up to the avant-garde Singapore where these products are served. The United Kingdom has already made financial commitments even if the Italian government introduces bill that would ban cultured meat.

As mentioned in the story, “being able to produce sufficient quantities of cultured meat at a sufficiently low price is problematic.” Some companies, like Dutch food technology company Meatable, said in May that their technology had reached a major milestone: create cultured pork products in eight days.

Whatever happens, it’s clear from this round that some venture capitalists remain optimistic about investing in this sector. Monday, look for a special TechCrunch+ Investor Survey on alternative proteins.

Steaming ‘o Joe Mug

Speaking of a food segment where funding continues to flow, this week the Green Coffee Company Closes $25 Million Series C Equity Financing. The company bills itself as “Colombia’s largest coffee producer” and is the latest to secure funding among coffee companies including Café Chamberlain Companion And Virgin street.

Green Coffee Company’s operations span 9,000 acres across 39 farms. It also has more than 11.5 million coffee trees.

Its funding was a bit unique: raising capital from a network of more than 450 high-net-worth individual investors who invest directly in portfolio companies advised by investment firm Legacy Group rather than in a mutual fund, the founder said from the Cole Shephard Company to TechCrunch. In total, investors have pumped more than $60 million into the company.

Shephard noted that the company is growing in this way because “the Legacy team has always been passionate about providing unique and compelling offerings that give individual investors the opportunity to invest directly in the companies they love rather than in a blind or diversified fund model over which they have little control or in which they entrust decision-making to large funds and institutions that provide little personalized attention.

Nutrition is in fashion

Meanwhile, we’re still trying to eat healthier, and as noted this week, Ahara is a new personalized nutrition company which “provides recommendations to its customers after they first complete a health questionnaire that asks about their diet and medical history, as well as their age and location, after which they can take a variety of home testing for genetic, epigenetic and biomarker testing. »

At the helm are Julie Wainwright, founder and former CEO of luxury online consignment company The RealReal, and celebrity physician-nutritionist Melina Jampolis. It is currently in beta and would have both a freemium model and a premium subscription which will include special benefits.

Ahara joins a crowded arena of nutrition startups. As noted in the story, most offer different things, but are pushing more and more customization. Venture capitalists love them too. In recent years we have seen daily health programs Powerful health raise $7.6 million through a telehealth nutrition platform To feed raise $8 million and a UK nutrition and health tracking app Zoebrought in £25 million.

Not so impossible

I have yet to cover the lawsuit between Impossible Foods and Motif Foodworks that began in 2022, but over the past few weeks, the case got a little interesting.

At the end of May, some revelations came to light that Motif suspected Impossible of hiring private investigators who allegedly used false identities to obtain information about Motif products.

This week, a court ruled that Impossible’s strategy did not break any rules, according to a report.

Here’s a brief history: Impossible sued Motif over Motif’s use of heme proteins in manufacturing its plant-based meat alternative. Learn more about the Motif process. Impossible alleges that Motif is infringing on its patent that covers the use of heme in making such food products.

Motif says its use of heme is not the same as Impossible’s and has previously indicated that “If Impossible wins (its Delaware lawsuit), that means no one else can experiment with heme in the plant industry.”​​

More titles:

Mushroom mania: Quorn Foods and Prime Roots partner to expand mycelium meat category And Mycelium Meat: MyForest Foods Raises $15 Million in Series A-2, Hires New CEO, Introduces New Product.

Beef is what’s for dinner: Volta Greentech and Protos launch next phase of climate-friendly beef project in Sweden.

Celebrity endorsements: MLB Legend Derek Jeter Joins Rachael Ray and David Chang as Investors in Meati Foods And Marcus Samuelsson partners with cultured meat manufacturer Aleph Farms.

If you have an interesting tip or lead on what’s happening in the worlds of venture capital and food tech, you can contact Christine Hall at chall.techcrunch@gmail.com or Signal at 832-862-1051. Requests for anonymity will be respected.