Innocent Meat bags €3m financing
Cultivated meat producer Innocent Meat GmbH has cashed in €3m in funding from Venture Capital Fonds MV and an anonymous business angel.
The three-year-old startup announced it will use the new proceeds to optimise components of its automated plug-and-produce solution for mass production of stem cell-based meat and fat that is offers to meat processors seeking alternative ways to the unsustainable agricultural production of meat. Additionally, the money will be used for scaling up and certification of Innocent Meats pilot plant in Rostock, Germany.
Innocent Meats business is to offer food processors access to growth media, cell lines, recombinant growth factors, scaffolding, and manufacturing hardware such as bioreactors and filtration systems. This equipment will allow clients to effectively oversee the production process, guaranteeing safety and efficiency in developing cultivated meat products. To grow up differentiated stem cells without the need for costly and ethical questionable fetal bovine serum (FBS), Innocent Meat has has formulated a proprietary serum-free proliferation medium for porcine primary muscle cells in cultivated pork. Together with partners from the University of Rostock, the SME has set up Faba.Bio, a platform to produce recombinant growth factors. Innocents growth media and recombinant growth factors allow clients to reduce costs and increase scalability compared to traditional methods using animals or microbes.
Cultured meat still has some challenges to overcome, but I am confident that with our solution we can make a significant contribution to solving the pressing issue of providing a growing world population with a safe, affordable and sustainable supply of meat, said co-founder and CEO, Laura Gertenbach.
