Upside Foods Raises $400 Million To Launch Cell-Grown Chicken In The U.S.

As it looks to a commercial rollout of cultivated chicken later this year, pending regulatory review, cell-grown meat, poultry and seafood brand UPSIDE Foods announced $400 million in new funding, bringing its total capital raised to-date to over $1 billion.

The round was co-led by Singapore-based investment company Temasek and a new investor, the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund (ADG). Existing stakeholders Bill Gates, Cargill and Cercano Management, among others, reinvested in the round, joined by new backers including Baillie Gifford, SALT fund and Synthesis Capital.

“UPSIDE has reached an historic inflection point, moving from R&D to commercialization,” said Dr. Uma Valeti, CEO and founder of UPSIDE Foods, in a press release. “Our team at UPSIDE continues to overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges in our mission to make our favorite food a force for good.”

The company said it will use the new funds to build a commercial production facility that can produce any type of meat in both ground and whole cut formats; however, the company’s initial focus is exclusively on chicken. The capital will also go towards adding staff and building out a supply chain for its cell-feed components to “reduce costs and enable greater scale.”

“Our approach is to identify and hold transformational growth companies with the potential to disrupt industries,” said Chris Evdaimon from Baillie Gifford’s Private Companies Team, in a press release. “Cultivated meat is well on its way to becoming a large-scale industry. And UPSIDE Foods is a frontrunner in developing ways to both make and market the product. We believe it’s a great long-term investment that will help the environment, animal welfare and the food system as a whole.”

Earlier this year, UPSIDE Foods made its first step outside meat and poultry products by acquiring cell-grown seafood company Cultured Decadence. The deal also established a Midwest office for the company. The announcement came on the heels of another expansion for UPSIDE – the opening of its Engineering, Production, and Innovation Center (EPIC) which will produce cultivated meat, poultry and seafood products in California.

Last May, the company rebranded from Memphis Meats to UPSIDE Foods and brought on former Whole Foods CEO John Mackey as an investor. Over the past year UPSIDE has also activated numerous Michelin star chef partnerships and developed an animal-free cell feed, the company said.

“As early supporters, we have been continually impressed to witness UPSIDE’s consistent, and industry-leading, technical and commercial progress since their founding in 2015, ” said Rosie Wardle, co-founder and partner at Synthesis Capital, in a press release. “The company’s recent achievements have validated their position as the leading company in this sector. We are excited to continue backing and supporting UPSIDE to the next stage of commercial scale production, and to changing the food system for the better.”

While the company has stated its intentions to launch cell-grown chicken later this year, that hinges on the publication of joint regulatory guidance from the FDA and USDA which does not currently have a set timeline. As of October 2020, the agencies began seeking public comments on how to label cell-grown food products.