A report published today by UK corporate finance house Oghma Partners has found that interest in cultivated meat has skyrocketed as the industry scales and becomes more economically viable, however, the authors project that a shakeout is likely and that could involve consolidation amongst the key players.
Cultivated meat startups first began to emerge in the late 2010s, with around $176 million invested in the industry from 2016 to 2019. In the period 2020 to 2021, this rose to over $2.15 billion. Oghma Partners estimates that more than $3.17 billion has been invested in cultivated meat to date.
“We see a shake-out similar to that we are seeing in the plant-based meat sector, with consolidation amongst the players most likely.”
“Significant investment into the cultivated meat industry has led to increasing cap-ex spend, with many companies scaling up production capacity and R&D facilities,” said Mark Lynch, partner at Oghma Partners. “These investments, some of which are yet to be completed, have the potential to accelerate the launch of products to consumers in the cultivated meat space.
“However, money for new investment is now harder to come by, as the slowdown in funding so far in 2023 demonstrates. The industry will be challenged to deliver sales to consumers and to stretch funding runways to the point of delivering profitability. We see a shake-out similar to that we are seeing in the plant-based meat sector, with consolidation amongst the players most likely.”
A small proportion of companies have received the lion’s share of the funding, with UPSIDE Foods alone raising around $676.57 million — 21.5% of the global total. The top five companies in the industry — UPSIDE Foods, Believer Meats, Wildtype, Aleph Farms, and Mosa Meat — are responsible for 46.9% of funds raised.
68% of the total funding has been raised by cultivated meat companies; of the remaining 32%, 17% are cultivated seafood producers, 11% are developing ingredients, and 4% are cultivated pet food companies.
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