Cell Based Tech Weekly – Lever VC + Brinc Launch China Alt Protein Fund, South Korea and Singapore Companies Rise

A new match in alternative protein investing has been made: 

Lever VC (NYC & Hong Kong) + Brinc (Hong Kong) 

What We Know: Lever VC has raised $28.3 million in capital to deploy across plant-based, cell-cultivated meat and dairy companies throughout China. According to Brinc Founder & CEO, Manav Gupta, “Lever VC will run due diligence on high-potential plant based startups. Once investments are made, Brinc will leverage its expertise in the market to support these startups to take advantage of opportunities in China.”

• Strategic investors include: Venture capital arms of COFCO and Yili, national industry trade group the China Plant-Based Foods Alliance, Givaudan, Cremer, and others. https://cellbased.link/911ac 

This isn’t the first VC collab we have seen with intentions of investing in Chinese alt-protein: 

• → New Crop Capital (NYC) + DAO Foods (China) — investment partnership to introduce new plant-based meat and alternative protein products in China 

In other News Across Asia

South Korea: Noah Biotech, an agro biotech venture capital company and a genomics company Eone Diagnomics Genome Center (EDGC) signed a joint agreement to develop technologies for the commercial production of clean meat using 3D printing technology. https://cellbased.link/ee628 

• The collaboration will focus on development of:
  • A technique for developing differentiation protocols for biomaterials containing muscle and fat cells from cows; 
  • A 3D printer to make a three-dimensional culture at high speed.

• Why We Care: This is the first company in South Korea to work on cultured meat and EDGC is a Life Sciences leader in genomics providing insight into the synergies between cultured meat and the pharmaceutical, medical equipment, and reagent businesses. 

Singapore: Cell based milk company Turtle Tree Labs raised US$3.2 million in funding to accelerate production of milk from mammary gland stem cells. This news comes shortly after US company BIOMILQ raised $3.5 million to execute on the same concept of cell cultured breast milk. https://cellbased.link/bd397 

• Turtle Tree Labs investors include Green Monday Ventures, KBW Ventures, CPT Capital, and Artesian New Luna Ventures. The  aforementioned Lever VC was a pre-seed investor in the company as well. 

• I spoke to the team at Turtle Tree Labs to gain a bit more insight into their proprietary process:
  • Mammary stem cells are sourced from milk and “a few other sources” 
  • They enable mammary stem cells to lactate through synthesis of a custom lactation media which will not be not be purified from the proteins that are secreted by the stem cells. 
  • The end goal is for Turtle Tree to create a whole milk protein containing all proteins and compounds in breast milk. The company was unclear as to whether they have been able to achieve this lofty goal. 

Singapore: Shiok Meats raised bridge funding of $3 million ahead of a larger Series A ($15 Million) coming by the end of this year. Investors include Agronomics, US-based slaughter-free investment firm VegInvest, London angel fund Impact Venture and UAE’s female-led Mindshift Capital Fund. https://cellbased.link/9d1fc 

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