Umami Meats, a Singapore-based FoodTech startup developing sustainable seafood, said Tuesday it has secured pre-seed funding of $2.4 million.
The pre-seed funding round was co-led by Better Bite Ventures, an Asia Pacific (APAC)-focused alternative protein venture capital, and Genedant, a venture capital investing in early-stage, deep-tech biomedical and agri-food startups in Asia, Umami Meats said in a statement.
Further participants in the round include CULT Food Science, Impact Venture, Katapult Ocean, Plug and Play Ventures, Prithvi Ventures, The Yield Lab Asia Pacific, and Venture for America.
With the goal of creating healthy, sustainable seafood without sacrificing animals or the oceans, Umami Meats has secured funding to further develop its plant-derived growth serum and low-cost production system for cultivated seafood. It is paving the way for Singapore to host the leading technology platform for minimizing the cost of large-scale cell-based manufacturing.
Umami Meats will utilize the funding to further advance its low-cost, scalable production system for cultivating fish by establishing robust and production-ready cell lines from multiple fish species, leveraging its growth serum to enable production at price parity, and maturing production processes ahead of product demonstrations and taste tests.
“We are delighted to have partnered with this group of like-minded investors who share our vision for sustainable seafood. Seafood is a $180 billion industry faced with growing global demand and supply that is increasingly volatile and under threat from climate change, overfishing, and ocean pollutants,
“Our investors’ commitment to a safer, healthier, and more sustainable food system, combined with deep industry knowledge in agri-food and alternative proteins, will be a valuable resource in establishing cultivated seafood as a viable, sustainable solution to the growing demand for seafood while reducing pressures on ocean ecosystems,” said Mihir Pershad, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Umami Meats.
Umami Meats said the company is set to be a pioneering force in sustainable seafood. With over 2 trillion fish caught every year, their “not caught” approach brings together the brightest minds in conservation, food science, cell and marine biology and gastronomy to cultivate the best, freshest, and most nutritious seafood available.
The company is cultivating a sustainable seafood future by producing delicious, nutritious, affordable cultivated seafood that is better for health, oceans, and future. Its cultivated, not-caught seafood offers equivalent nutrition to traditional seafood and provides a delicious culinary experience that is free from heavy metals, antibiotics, and microplastics.
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