SCiFi Foods (previously Artemys Foods) has raised $22 million in a new round of funding.
Coldplay, a British band, has previously backed the food-tech startup, which specializes in cultured beef. But Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm, spearheaded the latest Series A financing.
SCiFi Foods has already raised a total of $29 million in investment.
The funds will be utilized to continue working on research and development, marketing, and new hires, according to SCiFi Foods. Myra Pasek has already been named to the board of advisors. (Pasek has already collaborated with Impossible Foods and Tesla, among other innovative startups.)
The Future
SCiFi Foods is a company that specializes in cultured meat. However, it is distinct from the rest of the industry.
SCiFi Foods blends cultured beef with plant-based protein, while many companies focus on cultivating meat from cells in labs and scaling up that technology. Making meat this manner, according to the firm, helps to keep prices down without losing quality or taste.
“We’ve devised the technology to grow real meat without the need for an animal — an astounding feat.. This innovation is the future we once only imagined could be a reality,” said Joshua March, the CEO of SCiFi Foods.
Andreessen Horowitz general partner Vijay Pande agrees with March on the industry’s potential. He believes cultured meat would “disrupt the trillion-dollar global market for meat products, with huge benefits to the planet.”
“However, there are major cost hurdles… SCiFi’s technology and approach were the first we felt that truly has the potential to both scale quickly and to drastically reduce cost,” he said.
The price of cultured meat has not yet reached that of conventional beef. However, in the recent decade, tremendous improvement has been made.
A lab-grown burger cost $330,000 in 2013. However, companies like Future Meat, founded in Israel, have reduced this. According to the firm, the cost of producing a pound of cultured chicken is now roughly $7.70.
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