Dutch cultivated-meat producer Mosa Meat has raised €40m ($42.5m) in funding from a mixture of new and existing investors.
The round saw contributions from several new investors, including VTEC Ingredients, an alternative protein ingredients business in which German poultry major PHW-Gruppe owns a majority stake.
Marcus Keitzer, a board member for alternative protein sources at PHW, said the investment in Mosa Meat was "of high significance for our food-tech expertise with a focus on Europe and our diversification strategy in the business field of alternative protein sources".
He added: "For us, Mosa Meat is an important European partner to further expand our expertise but also a platform to contribute our know-how and infrastructure of the PHW Group."
Founded in 2016, Mosa Meat opened its first "scale-up facility" near the Dutch-Belgian border in Maastricht last May. The 29,708 square foot space is its fourth facility, and intends to eventually enable it to manufacture "tens of thousands of cultivated hamburgers a year".
Other new investors included Dutch state-owned investment group Invest-NL and the EU-run funding programme InvestEU.
Venture capital and private equity firms Doux Investments and XO Ventures also made contributions for the first time.
Existing investors Lowercarbon Capital and M Ventures led the funding round. The VC groups have supported Mosa Meat since its Series A round in 2018.
Maarten Bosch, CEO of Mosa Meat said in a statement: “The overall macroeconomic landscape has been rough in the last two years, which has culled the herd of companies and forced us to be even more strategic and focused on achieving our mission.
"As such, we are humbled and honoured to welcome both public parties and conventional meat producers to join this critical journey."
He added: "Rethinking how we produce great food for a growing planet without destroying it is quite a daunting task and will take many people and organisations to pull in the same direction.”
The new funds will be used to scale up production and reduce manufacturing costs as it plans its entry into the market.
The multi-million raise comes as Mosa Meat prepares for the first tastings of its cultivated beef in the Netherlands, which was approved by the Dutch government in July 2023.
Mosa Meat is also still waiting to receive regulatory approval from the Singapore food agency for the sale of its cultivated beef in the country.
Just Food has contacted the company to confirm when it expects the green light to come through.
Mosa Meat hopes to enter the market in Singapore with its cultivated beef burger.
According to its website, the company says it can produce 80,000 cultivated beef burgers from one 0.5g cow cell sample.
