Cultured beef firm Mosa Meat secures $55m in funding

Dutch food-tech firm Mosa Meat has secured an investment of $55 million as part of a larger Series B funding round.

Mosa Meat, which introduced what it says was the world’s first cultured beef hamburger in 2013, plans to use the funds to extend its pilot production facility in Maastricht.

In addition, capital from the first closing of Mosa’s Series B will be used to expand the company’s team and develop an industrial-sized production line.

According to Mosa, the new investment will also support the introduction of its product to consumers. While no date has been announced for this next step, the company says that it will work with regulators to demonstrate the safety of cultivated beef, in order to achieve regulatory approval for the European market.

Mosa’s Series B round is led by Blue Horizon Ventures, a venture capital fund which focuses on investing in food-tech firms promoting progress towards a more sustainable food system.

The company’s portfolio of recent investments includes other companies working in the cultured food space, such as Spanish fats producer Cubiq Foods and cultured breastmilk company Biomilq.

Blue Horizon Ventures partner Dr. Regina Hecker is joining the Mosa board with a special focus on science, scaling and regulatory.

Bell Food Group and M Ventures – which both participated in Mosa’s Series A round – along with other ‘mission-based’ investors and advisors, also backed the company’s latest financing push.

Mosa Meat says that it reached ‘critical technical milestones’ in 2019 and 2020, including an 88 times reduction in growth medium cost and the removal of fetal bovine serum from the production process.

“We are very excited to welcome our new partners and see existing partners continue our journey together,” said Maarten Bosch, CEO of Mosa Meat.

“With their support and capabilities, we have the opportunity to take the next concrete steps to scale production, make progress towards a cleaner, kinder way of making real beef, and ultimately increase the resilience, sustainability, and safety of our global food system.”

Dr. Regina Hecker, partner at Blue Horizon Ventures, added: “We are excited to be joining Mosa Meat as lead investor in this round. Following a thorough investigation of its technology and team, we are convinced that Mosa Meat is strongly placed to pioneer the scale up of cultured meat.”