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Jun 6, 2020

Huge $161 Million Investment Means Meat Without the Animal Is Here

Posted by in categories: food, sustainability

The number of startup companies and the amount of investment dollars going into the field of cultivated meat has exceeded—and will likely continue to exceed—annual exponential growth.


As we race to find sustainable ways to feed the world’s insatiable appetite for meat, the field of cultivated meat has exceeded annual exponential growth— more than doubling every year in terms of the number of startup companies and investment dollars. In late 2015, one startup raised a few hundred thousand dollars. In 2020, there are dozens of cultivated meat companies around the world pursuing everything from shrimp and bluefin tuna to steak and kangaroo.

This year, the sector took another significant step forward when cultivated meat first-mover Memphis Meats closed a $161 million Series B funding round from lead investors Softbank, Norwest, and Temasek. This amount is greater than all other publicly disclosed investments in cultivated meat companies combined and brings total investment in the startup to $181 million.

What does an investment like this mean for cultivated meat companies and the field as a whole? Having tracked the sector since its inception, I think there are three key takeaways.

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