Aleph Farms Raises $105 Million for Cultured Meat

Aleph Farms’ leadership team. From left to right: Technion Professor Shulamit Levenberg, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Adviser; Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer; Dr. Neta Lavon, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of R&D. (Credit: Rami Shalosh)

Israeli meat alternative startup Aleph Farms grows steaks directly from non-genetically modified animal cells. Aleph Farms has raised $105 million in a Series B funding round led by the Growth Fund of L Catterton and DisruptAD.

DisruptAD is a venture capital firm based in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. So this investment in Aleph Farms marks yet another business success to come out of the Abraham Accords, which were signed by Israel with the UAE and Bahrain less than a year ago. The accords have been paying off major dividends for both countries. Millions and millions worth of deals have been signed by businesses and investors from the two nations for startups like Aleph Farms in less than a year since the peace deal was signed, and this is in spite of the worldwide Coronavirus recession.
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DisruptAD’s Mayank Singhal said, “Our belief is that the future of food will be built around evolved consumer choices and a redressal of climate concerns, with Aleph playing a central role in shaping this agenda across global markets. We are delighted to partner with them.”

Founded in 2017 and based in Rehovot, Israel, Aleph Farms cultivates steaks directly from the cells of a living animal. It has a platform for the cultivation of whole beef steaks.

Aleph Farms boasts that its cell-grown meat is close to conventional meat thanks to a proprietary 3D platform that uses various types of cells to form complex tissue, ensuring an end product that resembles the taste, texture, and structure of farmed meat.
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We couldn’t agree more! https://t.co/pfxknLXe9c

— Aleph Farms (@AlephFarms) July 8, 2021

“We are thrilled to grow our relationships with existing partners, and welcome select new investors in this funding round,” said Didier Toubia, Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms, about the new investment. “This additional capital from top-tier partners with unparalleled experience and expertise brings us significantly closer to our vision of providing secure and unconditional access to high-quality nutrition to anyone, anytime, anywhere. We see our investors as partners for building this new category of meat and it was critical to us that they share our strong commitment to improving the sustainability of our global food systems.”

Last October, Aleph Farms announced a new initiative to eventually produce its products on Mars. The program is called Aleph Zero and is intended to produce non-GMO cells anywhere and in any environment. In this way the production of its meat alternative will not be affected by the environment nor in any way have an impact on Earth’s environment.

Startup Nation has several firms offering artificial meat through the wonders of 3D printing. Redefine Meat is one such startup. Established in 2018, Redefine Meat applies its proprietary 3D printing technology, meat digital modeling, and advanced food formulations to produce animal-free meat with the “appearance, texture and flavor of whole muscle meat.”

New Israeli startup Chunk Foods develops meat-alternatives. Chunk Foods leverages cutting-edge fermentation technology to produce whole-cut plant-based meat products. Stray Dog Capital declares that it is considered a pioneer in the alternative-protein sector and has invested in similar companies such as Beyond Meat, among others.

Then there is Israel’s MeaTech 3D Ltd. (NASDAQ: MITC) is a technology company developing a suite of advanced manufacturing technologies to produce cultured meat products. MeaTech has begun cultivated pork research and development activities, focusing on cell lines and technologies for the potential future mass production of cultivated pork.