Boston-based Motif Ingredients, a food-tech startup and part of biotech company Ginkgo Bioworks, has received the largest Series A funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures in the industry.
Breakthrough Energy Ventures includes multi-billion dollar investors such as the founders of Virgin, Microsoft and Amazon and now provides Motif Ingredients with an investment of $ 90 million.
Motif Ingredients develops herbal alternatives to classic meat and dairy products grown in bioreactors based on animal feedstocks. The startup works with vitamins and proteins from milk and meat ingredients and reproduces them in a fermentation process similar to beer production.
The challenges are to design and reproduce the properties of the original animal product, such as texture and taste.
“There is a clear consumer trend towards alternative proteins and non-animal versions of fish, burgers and chicken nuggets,” says Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks.
Also published on Medium.