KIRYAT SHEMONA, Israel — Profuse Technology, an Israeli Foodtech start-up that aims to revolutionize cultivated meat production by shortening its duration, improving its quality, and increasing yields, today announced the completion of a $2.5m seed funding round (and a total of $3.75m since it’s establishment).
The round is led by NY based investment company Green Circle, specializing in Foodtech, with the participation of existing shareholders – OurCrowd, Tnuva, and Tempo. New investors include Siddhi Capital, a leader in investments in cultivated meat, Kayma, the investment arm of De-Levie, a meat industry specialist, and other individual investors.
The company will use the funds to collaborate with cultivated meat producers, obtain FDA regulatory approval, and expand the research and development team, as well as its laboratories. The funds will also position the company to source significant capital raising at the end of the second quarter of 2023 to commercialize its customer collaborations.
“For some time, we have been cautiously optimistic about cultivated meat and unwilling to invest in producers,” said Stu Strumwasser, Managing Director of Green Circle and a lifelong vegetarian.
“While we believe that significant volumes of meat may one day be manufactured in bioreactors, we feel that it may take longer than many believe for these technologies to scale or be able to produce beef, pork, or chicken anywhere near price parity. ProFuse’s exciting technology may substantially accelerate that process and thus fundamentally change the calculus for the commercialization of lab-grown meat.”
ProFuse technology was founded in June 2021 as part of the FRESH START Foodtech incubator operating under the Innovation Authority and a consortium of 4 partners: Tnuva, Tempo, OurCrowd, and Finistere Ventures. Profuse’s technology is based on six years of research conducted at the Weizmann Institute of Science, led by the Co-Founders Dr. Tamar Eigler-Hirsh, Professor Eldad Tzahor, and Dr. Uri Avinoam. Guy Nevo Michrowski is the Co-Founder and CEO.
ProFuse Technology’s revolutionary solution promotes the price parity of cultivated meat with that of animal origin, promoting its market arrival. The company aims to receive FDA approval and sell its products as early as mid-2023. As a B2B supplier, Profuse provides media supplements to leading cultivated meat companies that reduce the muscle creation and growth phase cost, a process that constitutes about 50% of the total production cost. The company has several cooperation agreements with most of the world’s leading companies in the field.
According to the FAO, the factory farming of animal meat contributes significantly to climate change, air and water pollution, and biodiversity loss. To produce animal-based products in global quantities, it is necessary to feed and irrigate a considerable number of animals while losing large percentages of land. This industry is responsible for an estimated 20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the emissions produced by all means of transportation combined worldwide. A recent report found that 20 animal food companies are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than Germany, Great Britain, or France. The world’s five largest meat and dairy companies produce more emissions per year than oil and gas companies. This is especially critical when the FAO estimates that the earth’s population is expected to reach 10 billion people by 2050, while meat consumption will increase by over 70% compared to meat consumption in 2010.
Guy Nevo Michrowski, Profuse Technology’s CEO said, “We made a significant leap forward this year, and the new generation of the company’s products is immeasurably better than the previous generation, which was also groundbreaking at the time. In its current configuration, the meat industry is not sustainable and is one of the biggest causes of environmental destruction and climate change. We thank the investors for their trust and are confident in our ability to bring the vision of cultivated meat closer, thereby reducing these catastrophic damages and providing food security for all of humanity.”
About Profuse Technology:
Profuse Technology develops supplements for cultivated meat media that significantly reduces the cultivated meat cost by increasing the produced meat mass and shortenings the production time. Profuse’s technology is based on a six years groundbreaking study by a team from the Weizmann Institute of Science. The company’s solutions and additives are based on the activation (patent pending) of a biochemical signaling pathway that accelerates differentiation and enhances the fusion of muscle cells. Established in 2021, Profuse operates under the Fresh-Start food incubator, which is operated by Tnuva (Israel’s largest food producer), Tempo (A leading beverage company), Finistere Ventures (leading Agro-food VC), and OurCrowd.
