Roslin Tech, the Edinburgh-based food and ag tech company, has announced the closing of its series A capital raise led by Novo Holdings, the international life sciences investor.
Roslin Tech said this £11 million funding round will fuel the company’s next wave of growth in its mission to become a leading provider of animal cell lines to the emerging cultivated meat sector.
Cultivated meat is meat grown directly from animal cells without the need to raise animals.
Novo Holdings was joined by fellow investors Kairos Capital Group, Nutreco, Future Planet Capital, Esco Lifesciences, Alchimia, and private investors.
This adds to funding received in 2021-2022 from Scottish Enterprise and existing shareholders including the University of Edinburgh’s venture capital fund, Old College Capital, and Future Planet Capital’s BIF Opportunities LP.
“Cultivated meat offers the promise to improve animal welfare, lower antibiotics use, and reduce the environmental footprint of meat production,” said Roslin Tech.
“The cultivated meat sector is rapidly growing with over 100 companies active today and with billions of dollars of investment coming in.
“To deliver on the promise, cultivated meat needs to deliver a great sensory experience and production cost needs to come down.
“High quality cell lines are needed to make cultivated meat safe, affordable, and nutritious.
“Roslin Tech has developed pluripotent animal stem cells with the capacity to self-renew indefinitely and differentiate into desired end-tissues for meat.
“Roslin Tech is making these cells available to cultivated meat producers globally. Currently, the company has customers in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.”
The new funding will allow Roslin Tech to expand its cell line portfolio and to further develop the protocols for scale up of its cells into cost competitive cell biomass for meat production.
It will also invest in its insect venture which focuses on breeding better insects for the emerging insect protein sector, a promising regenerative agricultural technique.