Facing Budget Shortfall, New Harvest Seeks New Growth Model

New Harvest Executive Director Isha Datar was not expecting to receive $1.3 million in financial support when she took the stage at the non-profit organization’s 2022 conference earlier this month.

A week before the conference was slated to return after a two-year hiatus, Datar had announced to the New Harvest community that the organization, which supports research and innovation of cellular agriculture technology (cell ag), would run out of money by Halloween if additional funding was not made available.

The Friday afternoon emergency town hall that closed the conference was intended to serve as a brainstorm of ways to keep New Harvest from having to significantly scale back its operations, but quickly evolved into a fundraising opportunity that at times resembled an auction.

As significant as it was, however, the $1.3 million raised doesn’t solve all of the organization’s problems, Datar said a week after the event.

“If we had someone saying, I’ll give you $18 million for the next four years, to keep you on the growth path, that would have solved our problems. Instead, it’s almost harder because we feel more connected than ever (to the cell ag community), but we still are [going to] make some changes for long term success.”

Changes to the organization’s structure have already begun. Three full-time employees — communications manager Meera Zassenhaus, content production manager Michela Caffrey and executive assistant Lanto Hariveloniaina — announced their departures from New Harvest on Thursday.

Until now, New Harvest has relied on “grassroots” fundraising of small-value donations supplemented by “big-ticket donors” who provide large amounts of capital, Datar said. The funding supports the organization’s fellows who are primarily academic researchers hoping to solve some of the big issues facing the cultured protein industry, such as making animal-free growth medium for feeding cells.

New Harvest has maintained a “radically neutral position” in the political discussions surrounding cell ag’s role, Datar said, a move that has made it difficult to garner the interest of investors who see the opportunity for financial gains less straightforward.”

“In past times, that radical neutral position would have been government-funded or basically government-funded, but we don’t have that situation right now,” she said.

New Harvest was founded in 2004, initially helping co-found food tech startups like Perfect Day and the EVERY Company (formerly named Clara Foods) which develop cell-cultured dairy and egg proteins. Datar said New Harvest plans to sell some of its shares in these companies to extend its runway.

Around 2015-2016, the organization pivoted from accelerating cell ag companies to becoming a scientific think tank for the cultured protein industry. Currently, the non-profit funds about 25 researchers, and has supported 36 universities and 41 scientists over the years.

High inflation and fears of a recession have made the prospect of fundraising even more difficult and so the organization is looking to adjust its focus once more, leveraging its 18 years of experience in cell ag to be “facilitative leaders” and advocate in the field.

“Cellular agriculture is an ecosystem and any biotech that makes it to the market is a product of hundreds of people rallying around one thing,” she said. “It’s not just how do we create a product? It’s how do we create an entire ecosystem where many, many, many people are incentivized to make it work?”

The organization is committed to the research fellows it currently has but is unsure how it will fund new research fellowships in the future. Datar hopes that New Harvest can utilize industry partnerships or even public grants like the 5-year, $10 million USDA grant Tufts University received to start the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture.

“We’ve had to undergo an evolution every three years or so, in part because the field is progressing and also because I believe our work is successful,” Datar said. “Overall, I’m quite excited for what’s to come.”