Memphis Meats, a Berkeley, Calif.-based cell-based meat, poultry and seafood company, closed a $161m Series B funding round.
The round was led by SoftBank Group, Norwest and Temasek with participation from Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Threshold Ventures, Cargill, Tyson Foods, Finistere, Future Ventures, Kimbal Musk, Fifty Years and CPT Capital.
The company, which has raised more than $180m in total funding to date, intends to use the funfdd to build a pilot production facility, continue to grow its team, and launch products into the market.
Led by Uma Valeti, M.D., co-founder and CEO, Memphis is developing methods to produce meat directly from animal cells, without the need to breed or slaughter animals. The company released a cell-based meatball in February 2016 and a cell-based poultry in March 2017.
This round extends the Memphis Meats coalition to Asia, which is a strategically valuable market for cell-based meat and faces significant challenges in meeting demand for meat.
FinSMEs
22/01/2020