SAN FRANCISCO– Silicon Valley-based cellular agriculture company Mission Barns today announced a $24M Series A to scale up its cultivated fat technology and build a pilot manufacturing plant in the Bay Area.
Mission Barns is focused on cultivating animal fat—without the animal. Its technology platform enables starting from a handful of pork, poultry, or beef cells and feeding them a plant-based feedstock inside a cultivator. Over a short period of time, the novel process creates real, pure animal fat that delivers the mouthfeel and flavor of meat without raising and slaughtering live animals, and uses a fraction of the carbon emissions, water, and land required by conventional animal agriculture.
The first commercial application of Mission Fat is in plant-based meat. Consumers repeatedly cite flavor, mouthfeel, and meatiness as the leading hurdles to regularly purchasing plant-based meat products. CEO Eitan Fischer said: “Time and again, we see that the addition of Mission Fat to plant proteins makes alternative meat products in any number of categories far outperform the incumbent plant-based options.”
The company has developed products incorporating Mission Fat in various categories both on its own and through collaboration with leading meat companies and plant protein partners. Applications include: bacon, breakfast patties, burgers, nuggets, dumplings, hot dogs, poultry sausages, meatballs, and more.
The Series A funding will be used to scale up and commercialize its Mission Fat technology. Global food and agriculture investors participated in the round, including Lever VC; Gullspang Re:Food (Oatly); Humboldt Fund (NotCo & Geltor); Green Monday Ventures (Beyond Meat & Perfect Day); Enfini Ventures (Impossible Foods & Memphis Meats); and a European meat company. Other investors in the round included Blue Ledge Capital; Prithvi Ventures; and Joyance Partners.
A number of Seed investors increased their stake in the company including Global Founders Capital (Facebook & LinkedIn); Point Nine Capital (Delivery Hero); Better Ventures; and Cantos Ventures.
Nick Cooney, Managing Partner of Lever VC, said: “I’ve been sampling plant-based meats for 20 years from a huge variety of brands globally, and have never tasted anything as meat-like as products containing Mission Fat. This is going to be a game-changer for the alternative meat sector, because it’s going to help brands around the world have a dramatically better product almost overnight.”
Mission Barns’ team includes senior biotechnology experts from Genentech & Sigma-Aldrich; culinary leaders from Michelin-starred The French Laundry & Thomas Keller Restaurant Group; and veterans from other cellular agriculture companies including JUST & Memphis Meats.
The company has been growing quickly and is actively looking for passionate team members who want to be on the forefront of revolutionizing the global food system. A large number of technical and non-technical roles can be found on its careers page: MissionBarns.com/Careers
Mission Barns is partnering with leading meat and alternative protein companies globally, and is open to further partnership opportunities to utilize its Mission Fat technology: partnerships@missionbarns.com
About Mission Barns
Established in Berkeley, CA in 2018, Mission Barns is focused on cultivating animal fat—without the animal. Its technology platform enables starting from a handful of pork, poultry, or beef cells and feeding them a plant-based feedstock inside a cultivator. Over a short period of time, the novel process creates real, pure animal fat that delivers the mouthfeel and flavor of meat without raising and slaughtering live animals, and uses a fraction of the carbon emissions, water, and land required by conventional animal agriculture.
For more information, please visit www.missionbarns.com
