Motif FoodWorks Raises $226M to Solve “Most Important” Problems in Plant-Based Food

Can a Boston based cellular technology company solve the taste and texture challenges around plant-based proteins? Investors are betting more than $200 million on it.

Boston-based food technology company Motif FoodWorks announced today it has closed a $226 million funding round, which the company will use to expand R&D capabilities as it looks to “solve key sensory and nutritional challenges” in plant-based meat and dairy products and commercialize its first ingredients next year.

The round was jointly led by Ontario’s Teachers’ Pension Plan Board through its Teachers’ Innovation Platform and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, with participation from AiiM Partners, Wittington Ventures, Rethink Food, Rage Capital and Rellevant Partners. Existing investors who also participated in the round included Breakthrough Energy Ventures, CPT Capital, General Atlantic, Louis Dreyfus Company and Viking Global Investors. The latest funding round brings the company’s total capital raised to date to $345 million.

“What got investors so excited is that we’re on a mission to unleash the promise of plant-based foods,” Motif chief commercial officer Michele Fite said. “We’re changing the game in plant-based foods, creating technologies that are going to create foods that people actually crave.”

While many plant-based brands “mask and modify barnyard flavors and smells,” like soy and proteins and legumes, Fite noted, Motif is taking a different approach. The company was spun out of Ginkgo Bioworks, a cell programming company that produces industrial applications across food and agriculture, industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals, in February 2019 to focus on alternative protein solutions. Motif takes a “holistic approach to ingredient development” through both precision fermentation — also known as synthetic biology — and material sciences to make plant-based protein alternatives, Fite said.

For Motif, the new funding is “all about accelerating,” Fite said, as it further invests in R&D and production, aiming to commercialize its first ingredients in 2022. Applications for these include plant-based meats like burgers and sausages, as well as dairy alternatives for use in cheese, yogurt, milk and ice cream, Fite said. With the plant-based category growing rapidly, and sales up 27% to $7 billion in 2020, Fite said there is not only demonstrated demand for these products, but potential to grow the category even further through Motif’s innovations in taste and texture, where these products have been lacking.

“That’s why we say our mission and vision here at Motif is to unleash the promise of plant-based foods, because consumers want plant-based foods, but it’s like ‘I don’t eat it every day because I can’t find the stuff that I love,’” Fite said.

The company has worked to develop these ingredients both internally and through research collaborations. Last month the company announced a major step forward in development of its ingredients, gaining exclusive access to two technologies to enhance the taste and texture of plant-based meat and cheese. These technologies include an extrudable fat technology which allows for more authentic fat textures like marbling in plant-based meat, acquired from ingredient technology company Coasun, as well as prolamin technology to improve the texture of plant-based cheese licensed from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. Motif previously worked with the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign last summer to determine the rheological properties of plant-based foods and ultimately improve plant-based meat and cheese texture.

While several companies including Perfect Day are working to develop plant-based ingredients using fermentation, Fite said Motif’s partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks has given it a leg up. In December, Motif opened a new 10,600 square foot facility in the Boston Seaport neighborhood, located in the same building as Ginkgo Bioworks, allowing the two teams to collaborate. The strategic partnership gives Motif exclusive access to gene codes and fermentation foundries allowing Motif to scale ingredient development.

As companies such as Motif and Perfect Day develop new dairy and meat alternative ingredients, they’re also introducing consumers to ingredients and technology with which they aren’t familiar. Despite some recent pushback in the natural products industry over the safety of food developed using synthetic biology, as it blurs the definition of a genetically modified organism, Fite said Motif has seen consumers are open-minded about new innovations in plant-based food.

“These consumers are in because they believe that plant-based foods can deliver on better health, better sustainability for the planet, and better for animal welfare,” Fite said. “And if companies tell them, Hey, what is this product about, and then deliver on those values? That’s what we need to focus on. We’re finding consumers to be very open with our technologies, and the products that deliver on those values.”