Jul 9, 2021

Meati Foods , a Boulder CO-based public benefit corporation producing alternative meats, raised $50M in Series B funding. The round was led by Bond with participation from Acre Venture Partners, Prelude Ventures, Congruent Ventures, and Tao Capital. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate efforts to scale production and launch products at a national scale and more than double the size of its team. Led by CEO Tyler Huggins and CTO Justin Whiteley, Meati Foods creates high-protein, high-fiber and nutrient-dense meats using mycelium as its single main ingredient. The company creates high-protein, high-fiber and nutrient-dense meats using mycelium – the muscular root structure of fungi – as its single main ingredient. These whole-cut meats include Meati’s take on chicken breasts, steak and jerky in the final stages of development right now, as well as pork tenderloin, deli meats and other products in the future. To grow Meati, the company has developed a proprietary process to cultivate its strain of mycelium and form its naturally fibrous texture into whole-cut products without chemicals or processing. Meati says that, at scale, the process can produce the meat equivalent of 4,500 cows every 24 hours, and requires less than one percent of the water and land compared to conventional industrial meat production. The new financing builds on the $18m in debt financing Meati announced in April 2021 to build-out its “Urban Ranch” production facility – which, at nearly 80,000 square feet, will have the capacity to produce millions of pounds of Meati by 2022. The company has also added a cohort of investor-advisers, with members providing either new or upsized investments in this latest round. Examples include:  Rose Marcario, former Patagonia CEO & visionary advancing a new role of business to help solve the climate crisis (joined Meati’s Board of Directors earlier this year) John Foraker, Once Upon a Farm CEO & former CEO of Annie’s Organic Walter Robb, former CEO of Whole Foods Market Nicolas Jammet & Jonathan Neman, co-founders of Sweetgreen Sam Kass, former White House Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition & Partner at Acre Venture Partners David Barber, co-owner of Blue Hill Restaurants & founder of Almanac Investments The Alinea Group, including chef Grant Achatz, one of the most awarded and recognized chefs in the world FinSMEs