Singapore’s Growthwell Group has completed a follow-on investment to its seed funding round as the alternative-meat and seafood business seeks to expand in south-east Asia and beyond.

The family-run company has secured US$22m as Series A investment, which it said is “nearly three times of what was raised during the seed round in 2019”. That amount has not been previously disclosed.

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Singapore’s state investment company Temasek and another local investor DSG Consumer Partners, returned as participants in the new funding, which was led by Paris-based global investor Creadev. Contributors also included VC firm GGV Capital headquartered in California and peer Iris Capital in Beijing.

Growthwell said it “aims to accelerate its business expansion and product development efforts within the region leveraging this fundraise”, although potential markets were not documented.

Speaking to Just Food earlier this year, executive director Justin Chou said Thailand, Taiwan and China were in the company’s sights.

“Thailand and Taiwan are two core markets we’re going to enter, through joint ventures, investments or acquisitions,” Chou said in a January interview. “We definitely have plans to enter China sometime at the end of the year or early next year. Potentially, one or two investments in Europe or US is something we will look at but our key focus is definitely leading innovation in Asia.”

Unveiling the Series A funding, Chou said: “We are extremely pleased to have global investors like Creadev and GGV Capital onboard Growthwell as we look to scale-up our plant-nutrition business beyond South-east Asia. We believe our current series A fund raising round is one of the largest in the South-east Asia food-tech space and we will continue to trail blaze plant nutrition in Asia.”

Just Food has reached out to Growthwell to clarify progress on new markets and its current presence in the region.

Founded in 1989 by managing director Chou Shih Hsin, Justin and his brother Colin now oversee the business, which produces its own seafood- and meat-alternative products for the foodservice channel in Singapore, while it also co-manufactures.

In 2020, the company joined a group to invest in Israeli start-up ChickP, taking a “significant stake” in the chickpea protein firm.

Alan Zhu, the co-head of Creadev’s China division, said: “After conducting extensive market studies across the globe, we are happy to partner with Growthwell as it commands whole value-chain competence from ingredients to product and differentiation of plant-based seafood with Asian cuisine focus. We believe Justin, together with the highly motivated management team, can bring the business to another level and one day become the champion in this uprising market.”

See Just Food’s interview with Justin Chou here.