Invest now: Lab-grown meat, better, cheaper and faster
ProFuse - delivering tomorrow's food today
- Substantially accelerates the production of lab-grown meat, reducing costs and making it more economically viable for large-scale production
- Proprietary enhanced muscle generation technology, created at the Weizmann Institute, increases quality, texture and shortens growth timeline of cultivated meat
- Second generation of proprietary growth cocktail to be released at end Q2
- POCs with leading global cultivated meat producers, negotiating first commercial contract
- CEO is serial entrepreneur, leads experienced team of Weizmann Institute researchers and experts
- Pre-revenue, early-stage startup nurtured at Israel's Fresh Start incubator
- $2.5M SAFE round led by new external investor, Tnuva and Tempo reinvesting
"Generating excitement in a nascent industry that must increase yields and cut costs if it is to achieve commercial viability." – Elaine Watson, Editor, FoodTech Navigator
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Dear Josb,
The world's population is growing fast, threatening the future of global food supplies. Within 30 years, the meat industry will need to double its production to meet demand. Consumers are looking for meat alternatives to replace those produced from farm animals. Years ago, scientists began working on producing meat by growing cells in labs. They succeeded, but the process is long and expensive, making it impossible to produce a cost-effective, scalable product.
Our Crowd is investing in ProFuse, an Israeli startup based on years of research at the Weizmann Institute that has created the technology to produce lab-grown meat at scale. The details here are based on information received from, and verified solely by, the company.
The problem
Concerns about sustainability and the ethical treatment of animals are driving consumers to adopt alternative meat products to replace those produced from farm-grown livestock. This growing demand led to the birth of the lab-grown meat industry which uses cultured cells to produce products which have similar taste and nutritional value to farm-grown meat and are environmentally friendly. Unfortunately, this process is both costly and time consuming, rendering the business of cultured meat unviable.
The solution
ProFuse's technology develops muscle tissue of cultivated meat quicker and increases yields while improving the nutritional value of the final product. It targets a unique molecular signaling pathway which robustly regulates muscle cell differentiation, fusion and maturation. The development relies on six years of research conducted at the Weizmann Institute which established a detailed biochemical signaling pathway, and was proven in the lab for chicken, beef and lamb.
The second generation of the company's proprietary growth cocktail will be released at the end of Q2.
The company
ProFuse is a pre-revenue, early-stage startup nurtured at OurCrowd's Fresh Start incubator in Israel. The company is negotiating its first commercial contract and in May signed another POC with a leading global cultivated meat producer – one of several now in process.
The company is attracting expert interest. "Technology developed by Israeli startup ProFuse Technology that dramatically speeds up the muscle fiber production process and enhances production capacity – albeit in a laboratory setting – is generating excitement in a nascent industry that must increase yields and cut costs if it is to achieve commercial viability," writes Elaine Watson, Editor of FoodTech Navigator.
"I met ProFuse Technology CEO Guy. N. Michrowski last week in NYC and was very, very impressed," Bruce Freidrich, Founder and CEO of The Good Food Institute, notes on LinkedIn.
The sector
The cultivated meat industry is in its infancy, valued at $1.6M in 2021 and estimated to reach $140B by 2030, and $630B by 2040. The global demand for meat is increasing, especially in developing countries, as consumers adopt a more nutritional diet compatible with a sustainable lifestyle.
The team
Guy Nevo Michrowski, ProFuse's CEO and co-founder, is a serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in startups and the former VP Strategic Marketing of XPERI (NASDAQ:XPER). He leads a highly experienced team including the three Weizmann Institute scientists who conducted the research leading to the breakthrough. Dr. Tamar Eigler-Hirsh, CTO and scientific founder, holds a post-doc from Weizmann and has more than 20 years of research experience in the field of muscle development and regeneration.
The round
Proceeds from this $2.5M SAFE will be used to demonstrate how the technology can grow a whole cut of meat, chicken or similar, and demonstrate the utility of the ProFuse product in other species, particularly fish. ProFuse also plans to use the funds to expand its lab and R&D infrastructure, purchase a 2L bioreactor, and expand its R&D team.
Meet the CEO
Watch an investor briefing with CEO and Co-Founder Guy Nevo Michrowski and learn more about ProFuse.
The ProFuse solution
ProFuse is developing a tissue culture differentiation media-additive for the evolving cultivated meat industry that optimizes the cultivation process and reduces costs. ProFuse reduces production time and proliferation media usage while increasing efficiency and biomass production, meaning that more muscle mass is produced from the same starting number of cells. This allows for lower costs as well as contributes to the final product's structure and protein content, which supports the industry's interest in reaching a product that is as closely similar as possible to animal sourced meat.
Next steps:
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