Singapore-based cell-based crustacean producer Shiok Meats has completed a bridge funding round that brings its total fundraising to USD 30 million (EUR 26 million).
Shiok Meats said in a press release it raised the funding from major seafood exporter Vietnamese pangasius specialist Vinh Hoan, as well as from two of South Korea’s leading food industry players, Woowa Brothers Asia Holdings and CJ Cheil Jedang Corporation.
This bridge round also includes further investment from previous investors in the company, including Irongrey, Big Idea Ventures, Twynam Investments, Monde Nissin CEO Henry Soesanto, The Alexander Payne Living Trust, Beyond Impact Vegan Partners, Boom Capital Fund, Toyo Seikan Group Holdings, and Mindshift Capital.
Shiok Meats, which unveiled the world’s first cell-based lobster meat on 20 November, 2020, has also received investment from Aqua-Spark, an investment fund focused on sustainable aquaculture and related technologies and services.
“We are very excited to be backed by partners who believe in our potential to scale and are equally passionate about the cell-based meat and seafood space,” Shiok Meats CEO and Co-Founder Sandhya Sriram said in a press release. “The next 12 to 18 months are crucial, and the funds will allow us to advance our research and development efforts and build a state-of-the-art production facility in Singapore.”
Vinh Hoan, which invested in Hong Kong-based cultivated seafood start-up Avant Meats in January 2021 — “has a longstanding repute for embracing innovation while being one of the largest processors and exporters of fresh and frozen seafood,” Sriram said.
Shiok Meats plans to expand operations and collaborations and “also work on vertical and/or horizontal integration within the alternative protein industry,” Sriram said.
On 10 August, Shiok began that effort by acquiring Gaia Foods, Southeast Asia’s first cell-based red meat start-up. Sriram said the purchase was part of her company’s effort to “expand the company’s product range to penetrate the cell-based meat technology markets as quickly as possible.”
“The alternative protein space is evolving rapidly, and we are very excited to collaborate and integrate with Gaia Foods. They are an incredibly talented technical and scientific team with promising technology to produce 3D-structured and textured meats,” Sriram said.
Last fall, Gaia created its first structured meat product using its patent-pending cell-based meat technology: thin pieces of pan-cooked beef slices served with rice noodles. The company is backed by Big Idea Ventures and several angel investors.
“With both seafood and red meat on our suite of offerings and the recent fundraise from strategic investors, we are ready to power through to commercialization,” Sriram said. “Meaningful expansions like these will continue to be one of our priorities.”
Photo courtesy of Shiok Meats
