Mosa Meat Announces Oversubscribed Series B To US$75M After Second Close

Mosa Meat, the Dutch company behind the world’s first cell-based beef burger which the startup debuted in 2013, has announced the second closing of its Series B financing with US$20 million to bring its total amount raised in this round to US$75 million. Welcoming new global partners on board, the food tech says it will use the funds to expand its team and build an industrial production line towards commercialisation. 

Raising another US$20 million in its oversubscribed Series B round topping US$75 million, the Maastricht-based startup says the capital will bring it yet another step towards taking its cultivated beef to market. The round was led by Luxembourg-based food tech fund Blue Horizon Ventures, with participation from Target Global, ArcTern Ventures and Rubio Impact Ventures. Notably, Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation also invested in the latest round. 

We are delighted to welcome our new partners. As well as bringing immense strategic capabilities and expertise, they share our strong commitment to increasing the sustainability of our global food system.

Maarten Bosch, CEO, Mosa Meat

The first US$55 million close of its Series B was completed earlier in September, and saw Dr. Regina Hecker, partner at Blue Horizon Ventures, join the board of the company to bring a “special focus on science, scaling and regulatory” issues.

Commenting on its second Series B closing, Mosa Meat CEO Maarten Bosch said: “We are delighted to welcome our new partners. As well as bringing immense strategic capabilities and expertise, they share our strong commitment to increasing the sustainability of our global food system.”

In the pipeline for Mosa Meat’s expansion plans are to extend its current pilot production facility in its base in Maastricht, before developing its industrial-scale production line and expanding its team in order to bring its cell-based beef to market.

While no specific date has been set for the company for commercialisation, Mosa Meat says that the financing will help the company accelerate in this direction and that it will begin working with regulators to achieve approval in the European market. 

Since its inception in 2013, the company has made headlines for unveiling the world’s first cruelty-free cultivated beef hamburger made using cow’s cells, without the need for slaughter. 

The food tech’s team has now grown to 50 scientists and engineers, and has achieved critical milestones in the past year, including the feat of reducing the cost of its growth medium by 88-fold, and removing fetal bovine serum from the process to ensure a 100% animal-free product.

Mosa Meat’s funding comes at a time when investors are increasingly bullish about the future of alternative proteins, especially in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has exposed severe vulnerabilities in the global meat supply chain.

In just the first quarter of 2020 alone, plant-based and cell-based protein companies in the United States together have raised a total of US$930 million in investment, according to a Good Food Institute report. In Asia, it has been a record year for alternative protein funding, with recent research undertaken by Green Queen and industry expert Michal Klar revealing an estimated US$230 million raised by the region’s food techs in 2020.

All images courtesy of Mosa Meat.