Second tranche brings Perfect Day’s Series C funding to $300m

Perfect Day has completed a second tranche of Series C funding, bringing the total raised in the round to $300 million.

Since being founded in 2014, the food tech start-up has been developing and scaling a method for producing functional protein through the fermentation of microflora.

Perfect Day claims that the proteins created in this process are identical to the proteins found in cow’s milk, imparting to food products the nutrition, texture, and taste of conventional dairy.

The San Francisco-based company, which secured $140 million at the end of 2019 in Series C funding, says that over recent months it has doubled its production capacity, while substantially reducing costs.

The recent expansion of Perfect Day’s Series C round was led by a $50 million investment from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments). 

‘Long-time supporters’ Temasek and Horizons Ventures, which led the company’s Series B and the 2019 tranche of its Series C, also invested.

“We never doubted we’d reach this point, we just didn’t expect to get here so quickly,” said Ryan Pandya, co-founder and CEO of Perfect Day.

“And, thanks to our world-class team and investors, we’re not planning to take our foot off the pedal anytime soon. The coronavirus pandemic has shown just how fragile our food system is. We’re committed to building real change that prioritises diversity, agility, and resilience.”

Leon Pedersen, managing director, head of Thematic Investing at CPP Investments, added: “This marks the first investment into Thematic Investing’s new ‘climate change opportunities’ strategy, which will focus on innovative companies that are well positioned to respond to the challenges posed by climate change.

“Sustainable technologies like Perfect Day are poised to capture structural shifts in industrial practices, physical resources and consumer preferences for environmentally-conscious options, which are well-suited to our long-term investing approach. We look forward to building our partnership with the company and its management team.”

In November, Perfect Day confirmed that it had expanded its Series C round once again to $400 million, with an investment from SK Holdings.