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FoodTech Zapping: cellular agriculture bubble?

BlueNalu raises §60M for its cellular fish. Vow raises $6M for kangaroo clean meat (no comment). Yet, none of these startups has a product on the market. Funds are used to create pilot plants to produce a few hundred kgs of meat. Even if Singapore has authorised one product (chicken) from one corporation (Just), it is only sold in a single restaurant (VIP, on reservation). Clean meat won’t be on our tables before the end of this decade. So, are these startups building, brick by brick, the elements of a huge disillusion?

🇪🇸 IS SPAIN THE NEW ELDORADO FOR CELL AGRICULTURE?

BioTech foods, a Spanish clean meat startup, is getting a €5.2M funding from the Spanish government. This funding will help to investigate how to scale production and how to produce healthier fats. The company previously received a €2.7M funding from the EU commission.

This is even more interesting than a direct grant to the company. In both cases, BioTech foods are leading a consortium of many universities, startups and other companies. It shows the growing interest of all the involved parties to explore cellular agriculture.

After the Netherlands (home of the first experiments in cellular agriculture), Israël, Singapore and the US, is Spain becoming the new eldorado of clean meat?

SINCE YOU’RE HERE

The family, the French superstar accelerator is in trouble, I would just say that I am not surprised – Beyond Meat partners with PepsiCo on snack and beverages, I am quite curious the type of products they could launch together – Deliveroo raises $180M at a $7B valuation, the IPO is coming soon, will you bet on Deliveroo’s stock? – Weber (the barbecue-grill maker) acquired June, a smart oven startup – Glovo raises €100M to grow its network of dark stores, to do so it partners with a real estate company, we can expect more and more investments from real state companies into Dark kitchens and Dark stores in 2021.

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