Aleph Farms completes $105 million Series B round

Aleph Farms, an Israeli cultivated meat company that grows steaks directly from non-genetically modified animal cells, has announced the completion of a $105 million Series B funding round. The round was led by the Growth Fund of L Catterton, a consumer-focused private equity firm, and DisruptAD, one of the largest venture platforms in the Middle East. To date, it brings its total funding to $118 million.

“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. “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.”

The round saw participation from Skyviews Life Science, as well as food and meat companies including Thai Union, BRF, and CJ CheilJedang. Existing investors, including VisVires New Protein, Strauss Group, Cargill, Peregrine Ventures, and CPT Capital, also took part in the round.

Aleph Farms intends to use the funds to expand its efforts for large-scale global commercialization of its cultivated beef steaks. The company anticipates an initial market launch in 2022 and intends to scale up manufacturing, grow its global operations, and expand its product lines and technology ahead of that.

Earlier this year, CTech visited Aleph Farms to explore its laboratory in Rehovot that samples cow cells, stores them in a cell bank, develops different muscle, blood vessels, and fat cells in a cell bioreactor, and then grows the tissue in a tissue bioreactor to produce a steak. “With cultivated meat, you can control the quality and tailor the quality of the raw material you get to make exactly the type of dish, cooking, and experience you want for your consumers,” Toubia told CTech at the time.

"With cultivated whole-muscle cut steaks, an optimized platform for cost parity at scale, and a global partnership network with the world’s largest meat producers, Aleph Farms has differentiated itself as the leading cultivated meat company poised to go to market,” said Michael Farello, a Managing Partner at L Catterton’s Growth Fund. “We are excited to support their success as they prepare for global launch, and we look forward to leveraging our significant expertise in food and sustainable businesses that meet the needs of a changing consumer and a changing world.”

Mansour AlMulla welcomed Aleph Farms on behalf of DisruptAD as its first Israel-based partner, and said: “Our partnership with Aleph Farms underpins our long-term desire to accelerate the path for technology pioneers and change leaders that are building technologies of tomorrow.” Mayank Singhal, also speaking on behalf of DisruptAD, added “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.”

Aleph Farms was co-founded in 2017 by Didier Toubia, The Kitchen Hub of the Strauss Group, and Professor Shulamit Levenberg from the Biomedical Engineering Faculty at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. It is represented by advs. Yoav Etzyon and Efrat Shpizaizen from Amit, Pollak, Matalon & Co (APM). L Catterton has $30 billion of equity capital across its fund strategies and has made 250 investments since 1989. DisruptAD is ADQ’s venture capital platform and invests across the UAE as well as other global markets including the Middle East and North Africa region, India, China, South East Asia, and the United States.