The Dutch cultivated-meat producer Mosa Meat has secured €40m ($42.5m) in funding from a mix of new and existing investors, including VTEC Ingredients, a business specializing in alternative protein ingredients in which German poultry major PHW-Gruppe holds a majority stake. Marcus Keitzer, a board member for alternative protein sources at PHW, emphasized that the investment in Mosa Meat is crucial for their food-tech expertise in Europe and diversification strategy in the alternative protein sources field. He stated, “For us, Mosa Meat is an important European partner to further expand our expertise and contribute our know-how and infrastructure of the PHW Group.”
Mosa Meat, established in 2016, inaugurated its first “scale-up facility” near the Dutch-Belgian border in Maastricht last May. The facility, spanning 29,708 square feet, is the company’s fourth facility and is expected to enable it to produce “tens of thousands of cultivated hamburgers a year” in the future. Other new investors include Dutch state-owned investment group Invest-NL and the EU-run funding program InvestEU.
Additional contributions came from venture capital and private equity firms Doux Investments and XO Ventures for the first time. Lowercarbon Capital and M Ventures, existing investors, led the funding round, having supported Mosa Meat since its Series A round in 2018. Maarten Bosch, CEO of Mosa Meat, conveyed, “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 and focused on achieving our mission.”
The new funds raised will be utilized to scale up production, reduce manufacturing costs, and facilitate the company’s market entry. The raise precedes the first tastings of Mosa Meat’s cultivated beef in the Netherlands, approved by the Dutch government in July 2023. Furthermore, regulatory approval from the Singapore food agency is awaited for the sale of cultivated beef in the country. Mosa Meat aims to introduce its cultivated beef burger in the Singaporean market.
According to its website, Mosa Meat can produce 80,000 cultivated beef burgers from a single 0.5g cow cell sample. The company’s vision revolves around producing quality food sustainably to meet increasing global food demands without harming the environment. As the company navigates the regulatory landscape and prepares for market entry, it continues to pioneer advancements in the cultivated meat sector.
