This third closing of $10m brings the total raised in the round to $85m. Investors in this last closing included new and existing investors like animal nutrition and fish feed group, Nutreco, and Jitse Groen, CEO of Just Eat Takeaway.com.
Mosa Meat said it will use the funds to extend its current pilot production facility at its home in Maastricht, develop an industrial-sized production line, expand its team, and get cultivated beef to the retail market.
Nutreco CEO Rob Koremans says, “I am delighted that Mosa Meat has reached its next milestone toward large scale production of real meat. Nutreco is invested in its mission of Feeding the Future, which will require protein production from traditional and alternative protein production methods.
“Our partnership in Mosa Meat is an important part of our strategy to help to meet the growing demand for high quality protein.”
Last year Maarten Bosch, CEO of Mosa Meat, told FeedNavigator that, following many years of research and development work in the lab, the company has a clear vision of what it would take to bring cultured meat to the market at a large scale, at a cost level that is competitive with traditional meat. “But [that vision] requires a whole value chain or ecosystem that we could never build ourselves. In the last few years, other companies are beginning to see the opportunity and they have reached out to us.”
At the onset of 2020 Nutreco also revealed a strategic partnership with cell-based seafood startup, Blue Nalu. We spoke to Koremans back then to hear more about the company’s rationale for supporting cultured meat and seafood innovators, and the longer-term goals for the business.
RAS investments
This month also sees Nutreco continuing down the track of financing land-based fish farming.
On February 3, the Dutch group announced backing for Norwegian land-based fish farming company, Proximar. Strategically located near the iconic Mount Fuji, the Atlantic salmon farming facility will be a large-scale land-based fish farm helping to meet the large demand for salmon in Japan, using Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS) technology.
Japan has a large market and demand for Atlantic salmon in addition to limited possibilities for sea-based production, placing a large dependency on imports from other countries and increasing the environmental cost, said Nutreco.
Nutreco chief innovation officer, Viggo Halseth, said the Proximar team is capable in terms of delivering on land-based fish farming and that, akin to Nutreco’s values, sustainability is a focus cornerstone for the RAS developer.
"Skretting will work with Proximar bringing our knowledge in feeding and salmon production, while also building our own competence and customized fish feed to support all customers that produce RAS.”
Last year saw Nutreco make a series of investments in RAS initiatives: “To feed a population of almost 10 billion by 2050, we will need to use a variety of protein production methods; this includes traditional as well as alternative farming methods to produce protein,” it argues.
