Mosa Meat eyes cultivated meat scale-up with €40M cash injection ahead of formal tastings

17 Apr 2024 --- Dutch food tech company Mosa Meat has secured €40 million (US$42.4 million) in funds to finance the next phase for the company and prepare for market entry, ahead of a public tasting of its cultivated meat burger and an upcoming launch in Singapore.

This comes seven months after the Leonardo Di Caprio-backed start-up achieved B Corp certification, becoming the first cultivated meat company worldwide to earn this merit.

Following the cash injection, the firm is looking for new and existing partners to help it bring cultivated beef to consumers.

Notably, the cell-based food industry has been battling its own share of hurdles with shrinking investments, meeting consumers’ taste and texture demands, improving cost-effectiveness and achieving wider regulatory approval, which has restricted new investment in the emerging industry.

“The overall macroeconomic landscape has been rough in the last two years, which has culled the herd of companies and forced us to be even more strategic,” says Maarten Bosch, CEO of Mosa Meat.

“As such, we are humbled to welcome both public parties and conventional meat producers to join this critical journey.”

The company — which formulated the world’s very first cultivated hamburger from cow cells — was founded in 2016 and is based in Maastricht, the Netherlands and is a privately held company backed by Lowercarbon Capital, M Ventures, Invest-NL, Bell Food Group, PHW Group, Mitsubishi Corporation and Nutreco, among others.

Diverse investments
Lowercarbon Capital and M Ventures led the “oversubscribed round,” which also included new government-backed partners like Invest-NL, the Dutch state-owned impact investor, partly with coverage by InvestEU, the European Commission program supporting initiatives that align with EU policy priorities.

Mosa Meat's CEO Maarten Bosch wants cultivated beef to be a "real choice" for consumers and a complementary solution to combat climate crisis.

Regional development agency for the Limburg province LIOF and the regional fund supporting greenhouse gas emissions reduction Limburg Energy Fund also provided capital to Mosa Meat.

Conventional meat sector players such as PHW Group, one of Europe’s largest poultry producers, also injected funds. Furthermore, XO Ventures, Doux Investments and other new investors joined existing investors to create a “more diverse and resilient” food system together.

Cultivated beef strides
After opening and successfully starting production their scale-up facility and after becoming a B Corp last year, Mosa Meat is currently preparing its first formal tastings of cultivated beef in the Netherlands.

“The Netherlands continues to be a global leader in sustainable food innovation, even as others in Europe appear to be taking a step backward at the height of our climate and biodiversity crises,” Bosch said earlier this year.

He also views cell-based meat as a way to mitigate the environmental impact of conventional meat. 

“In an increasingly polarized environment, we choose to connect and collaborate, working toward a future where cultivated beef is a real choice for consumers and a complementary solution in the toolbox to combat the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and food insecurity.”

Organizing the world food system is essential to continue producing good food for a growing global population without irreparably damaging the planet in the process, he argues, adding that it is a “massive challenge” that will require many people and organizations to work together.

Mosa Meat’s cultivated beef burger is expected to be introduced in Singapore soon.Mosa Meat’s cultivated beef burger is expected to be introduced in Singapore soon, awaiting an imminent regulatory greenlight. Currently, cultivated beef is only sold by Israel’s Aleph Farms, making it the third country after the US and Singapore to greenlight commercial cell-based meat for human consumption.

A better future?
Scientists view cultured meat production as an environmentally sustainable and animal-friendly alternative to conventional meat, noting that it reduces climate impact, air pollution, land usage, and water consumption compared to traditional industrial beef production.

Researchers are also looking at lab meat’s impact on farmers, revealing a mixed bag of perspectives on cultured meat, with some welcoming the bioreactor meat due to a “competitive edge” over it.

Further, with companies gradually receiving approval for “safe to eat” and sales worldwide, the sector exhibits the potential to co-exist with conventional meat, even prompting governments to set up policies for incubating the new food tech sector and key players expanding with new plants.

“Currently, cell-based meat is expensive to produce and uneconomic compared to conventional farming,” Mark Lynch, partner at finance advisor Oghma Partners, previously told Food Ingredients First. However, he predicts this to change over time as costs reduce as and when the market grows.

By Insha Naureen