Impossible Foods, a Redwood City, Calif.-based food-tech startup, secured approximately $500m in its latest funding round.
The round was led by new investor Mirae Asset Global Investments, with participation from existing investors including Khosla Ventures, Horizons Ventures, and Temasek and individual investors Jay Brown, Common, Kirk Cousins, Paul George, Peter Jackson, Jay-Z, Mindy Kaling, Trevor Noah, Alexis Ohanian, Kal Penn, Katy Perry, Questlove, Ruby Rose, Phil Rosenthal, Jaden Smith, Serena Williams, will.i.am, and Zedd.
The startup, which has raised nearly $1.3 billion since its founding in 2011, intends to use the capital to:
- invest in fundamental research and innovation;
- accelerate its manufacturing scaleup;
- expand its retail presence and its availability in key international markets; and
- accelerate commercialization of next-generation products including Impossible™ Sausage Made From Plants and Impossible™ Pork Made From Plants.
Led by Dr. Patrick O. Brown, M.D., Ph.D., founder and CEO, Impossible Foods makes nutritious meat and dairy products from plants — with a small environmental footprint than meat from animals. The new funding closely follows the launch of its next-generation products, Impossible Sausage and Impossible Pork, which debuted at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January 2020. Demand for the company’s flagship product, the Impossible Burger, continues to be strong, with new and existing strategic partners to bring plant-based meat to their customer bases. Burger King continues to sell its Impossible Whopper at its more than 7,000 U.S. locations. DoorDash, the on-demand door-to-door delivery service, launched a dedicated Impossible Cuisine category to highlight merchants that offer Impossible menu items.
Impossible Foods also announced it has taken measures to prioritize the health and safety of its employees since the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, including:
- mandatory work-from-home policies for all workers who can conceivably telecommute, through the end of April;
- stringent restrictions on external visitors to company facilities and those of co-manufacturing partners;
- a ban on virtually all work-related travel and events, both domestic and international; and
- daily sanitizing, disinfecting and deep cleaning of all workplaces to ensure the strictest hygiene standards and utmost safety.
FinSMEs
16/03/2020