Israel cultivated-meat startup Aleph Farms has completed a $105 million Series B funding round led by the Growth Fund of L Catterton and DisruptAD, according to a news release. Other new participants included Skyviews Life Science and a consortium of international food and meat companies that include Thai Union, BRF and CJ CheilJedang. Previous investors VisVires New Protein, Strauss Group, Cargill, Peregrine Ventures and CPT Capital re-upped.
The funding will help foster Aleph’s plans to commercialize cultivated beef steaks on a global scale, beginning with ramping up international manufacturing and growing operations, and fleshing out its product lines and technology platform, in advance of the company’s planned 2022 market launch.
As part of the round, Aleph has received $2.5 million in financing from BRF SA, a chicken and pork processor based in Brazil, according to Reuters. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding in March, according to a news release, that laid out plans for jointly developing and producing cell-cultivated meat using the technology created by Aleph Farms.