Extracellular accelerates cultivated meat business, secures $1.2 million in funding

29-Mar-2023 - Last updated on 29-Mar-2023 at 15:00 GMT

Source: Extracellular

Extracellular, a UK-based contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) in the cultivated meat space, secured $1.2 million, including $700K in non-dilutive funding according to the company. CEO and founder, Will Milligan spoke with Food Navigator-USA on the company’s vertically integrated strategy and navigating the competitive cell-based meat landscape.

According to the company’s press release, Extracellular is “an enabler of the cultivated meat industry, providing research and development capabilities for cultivated meat companies to accelerate the development and scale up of production.”

With its new round of capital, the company plans to continue strengthening its commercial viability for its partners in hopes of capturing a piece of the global protein market.

Founded nearly a year ago, Extracellular has secured over $1.9 million in the booming cell-based meat and seafood scene – a segment worth over $3.83 billion in investments with more than 100 start-ups on the rise in 2021, according to the Good Food Institute (GFI)

Supported by the investment platform for plant-based and cultivated start-ups, Vevolution, Milligan sourced new investors through the platform. Investors include Future Food Fund, Newland Syndicate, Alex Payne (angel investor), as well as Big Idea Ventures, Unruly Capital, Tiny VC and Good Startup.

“We’re opening our equity financing round in Q2 2023,” Milligan explains. “And we’ll be using this funding to accelerate our plans to become the world-leading CDMO for cultivated meat.”

Building commercial viability, entering the booming global protein market

With research facilities at Science Creates in Bristol, Extracellular is currently made up of 12 full-time scientists and engineers with expertise in cell culturing, bioprocessing, analytics and data science.

The company’s funding to date established high through-put media development, bioprocess development capabilities and 200L of installed bioreactor capacity, which can produce kilograms of cultivated meat, according to Milligan.

Centralizing capabilities, scaling up for global partnerships

Extracellular’s planned equity round, Milligan explains, is expected to scale up its bioprocess development capabilities to 2,000L capacity in a food-grade facility. He adds that the company will also invest in advanced digital process development models and plan profit-driven international expansion.

Competition in the cell-based meat landscape is growing quickly. According to GFI, 25 countries have at least one cultivated meat company.

Extracellular’s strategy is to horizontally integrate its capabilities and merge technical specialties across companies. Milligan explains, “Establishing all of these capabilities takes a long time and limits the speed of development. Similarly, building technical teams in each company dilutes the core expertise in the industry.”