GOOD Meat Raises $97M, Bringing Its Total Funding For Cultivated Meat To $267M

Food tech company Eat Just’s cultivated meat division GOOD Meat has raised US$97 million in new funding, adding to the $170 million round the company announced in May of this year and bringing GOOD’s overall round to $267 million. The new funds will go towards further research and development for GOOD’s cultivated meat products.

New and previous investors participated in the round, which included UBS O’Connor, Graphene Ventures, K3 Ventures, Resilience Reserve, and businessman Fernando Chico Pardo, among others.

Largest round for cultivated meat

GOOD’s total $267 million round is the largest to date for a cultivated meat company anywhere in the world.

Previous milestones for Eat Just and GOOD Meat include become the world’s first company to get regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat, which it did in December of last year in Singapore. The company followed up that announcement by making the world’s first actual sale, at Singapore restaurant 1880. So far, GOOD has sold its cultivated chicken bites, which are made up of 70% cultivated chicken and 30% plant protein, in the restaurant and as a delivery item via Delivery Hero subsidiary Foodpanda.

In May of this year, around the same time as the $170 million fundraise, GOOD began selling its chicken bites at a second establishment, Madame Fan in Singapore. Rather than simply add cultivated chicken bites to the menu, the famed restaurant outright replaced traditional chicken with GOOD’s product.  

Eat Just and GOOD say the new funds announced today will help “to increase capacity and accelerate research and development for high-quality, real meat made directly from animal cells.”

Adding muscle to the ranks

Like other companies, Eat Just cultivates real chicken cells in bioreactors to create a protein product that, while not vegan, doesn’t require the slaughter of animals. Another promise of cultivated meat is that it requires fewer environmental inputs (land, water, etc.) than traditional animal farming.

Along with the new funds, GOOD Meat also today announced some additions to its staffing. The company has added former US Secretary of Agriculture and US House of Representatives member Dan Glickman to its Advisory Board. Meanwhile, Jim Borel, the former Executive Vice President of US conglomerate DuPont, will join GOOD Meat’s Board of Directors.

Further expansion 

In keeping with that, just a couple weeks ago Eat Just and GOOD announced they were bringing their cultivated meat to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. They will do so through a partnership between Eat Just and Doha Venture Capital (DVC) and Qatar Free Zones Authority (QFZA). Part of the initiative will involve building out a production facility for cultured meat. Regulatory approval is expected, as well.

Regulatory approval for GOOD Meat in the US has yet to materialize, though the additions of Glickman and Borel may benefit that process.

“This investment, along with the guidance of Secretary Glickman and Jim Borel, puts us in a position to execute our plans in multiple regions around the world,” Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, said in a statement today.

Earlier this year, Eat Just raised $200 million in financing to continue building out its plant-based egg business, which the company is growing simultaneous to its work in the cultivated meat space.

Lead image courtesy of Eat Just/GOOD Meat.