Melt&Marble secures investment to commercialize “designer fats”

Swedish biotech firm Melt&Marble has secured €7.3 million (US$8.5 million) in Series A funding to propel its precision fermentation-based “designer fats” transition from R&D to commercialization. The company’s market focus is the EU, with preparations underway for the ingredient’s entry into the US food market, where regulatory pathways allow for faster deployment.

The EU-backed innovator claims to engineer fats “from the molecule up” to offer manufacturers animal-free, tailored fat structures, which can enhance food functionality such as texture and mouthfeel. Its cost-competitive, locally produced ingredients meet both technical demands and sustainability goals.

The investment turns Melt&Marble from an R&D company into a “commercial, revenue-generating company,” Thomas Cresswell, chief business officer at Melt&Marble, tells Food Ingredients First.

“This round is what takes us from demo-scale to the market. We’ve already proven pre-commercial production at tens of thousands of liters scale, and with this funding and our manufacturing partner, we can now move directly into commercial volumes to support our first 1–2 years of sales across food and personal care.”

Melt&Marble says its platform responds to growing market demands for oils, fats, and lipids worth more than US$100 billion, covering meat and dairy alternatives, chocolate confectionery, bakery, and specialized nutrition.

Thomas Cresswell, chief business officer at Melt&Marble: Precision-designed fats add the flavor and mouthfeel that alt-meat and dairy products often lack.Growth in fats and oil ingredients is opening up innovation opportunities as consumers demand flavor and texture indulgence in foods, reports Innova Market Insights. Nearly 40% globally agree that rich flavors make their F&B experience impressive.

Precision fermented fats: Is the market ready?

Melt&Marble views the investment as a pivotal moment, signaling strong cross-sector validation of its technology platform and commercial strategy.

Swedish deeptech investor Industrifonden led the funding, with participation from the European Commission’s European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund and strategic partners Valio and Beiersdorf.

“Earlier this year, we partnered with Valio to advance commercialization in food. Partnerships of this kind demonstrate that precision-designed fats are entering a new stage. We are working with industrial partners on real formulations, adapting our fats to existing processes and preparing for new products in the future,” says Cresswell.

Such collaborations indicate the maturation of the category and rising demand for fats that offer performance and sustainability benefits, which “conventional plant oils cannot deliver.”

Improving alt-meat and dairy functionality

Compared to conventional plant and animal fats, Melt&Marble’s designer fats offer various benefits to manufacturers.

“A major gap in many plant-based and hybrid foods is fat functionality. Current plant oils often melt too quickly, fail to deliver juiciness, or lack the structural behaviour needed for convincing meat and dairy alternatives,” says Cresswell.

“By controlling aspects of the fats our microbes produce, such as the chain length and the positioning of fatty acids onto a glycerol backbone, we can create design fats that behave more like the slow-melting, flavorful fats found in animal products.”

When these fats are added to alt-meat or dairy products, they provide the flavor and mouthfeel that plant- and fungi-based ingredients alone lack.

“Designer fats allow us to build the properties needed for specific applications. That means we can create fats with optimal melt curves and sensory or functional performance for applications like chocolate, confectionery, bakery, or alt-meat or dairy,” explains Cresswell.

Addressing cocoa and alt-dairy pain points

Melt&Marble is also exploring the replication of cocoa butter’s behavior with its fats, particularly in light of the significant cocoa price increases that have impacted the sector in recent years.Precision fats offer the melt and mouthfeel that cocoa-based products demand (Image credit: Melt&Marble).

“The global cocoa industry is currently facing major problems that will have an impact on production of goods like chocolate, and precision fermentation offers an alternative way to fill the gap between cocoa production and global demand,” says Cresswell.

He expects precision-designed fats to be adopted the fastest in categories where fat functionality is “mission-critical and supply chains are under pressure,” specifically chocolate, confectionery, bakery, and dairy alternatives.

“In chocolate and confectionery, performance requirements are extremely tight, and cocoa butter volatility is pushing manufacturers to actively seek functional, scalable alternatives. In bakery, fats drive texture, aeration, and shelf life, making it a high-value target for performance-driven reformulation.”

Meanwhile, alt-dairy formulators continue to struggle to replicate the mouthfeel and melting behavior of animal fats — a challenge Cresswell says is precisely where “designer fats excel.”

Targeting cost benefits

From a cost perspective, the precision-fermented fats are “already competitive” with specialty oils and fats, as well as cocoa butter, Cresswell notes.

“While our current production costs remain higher than commodity lipids such as palm or coconut oil, we have a clear and credible pathway to reach full cost competitiveness with these commodities through scale-up and process optimization.”

Unlocking new food experiences

Looking ahead, Melt&Marble will explore new food experiences, which Cresswell emphasizes “simply aren’t possible today with conventional fats.”

These include applications from “chocolate that melts perfectly at higher temperatures, to ultra-creamy plant-based dairy, to baked goods with better texture.”

“What’s next for Melt&Marble is taking precision-designed fats from proof-of-concept into mainstream food systems — scaling our platform, launching with strategic partners, and expanding into both food and personal care as a new class of sustainable, high-performance lipids,” Cresswell concludes.