CULT Food Science Corp has said its Singapore-based portfolio company Umami Meats recently won two awards for sustainable seafood in Asia, while also making significant progress in research and development, and human resources.
The company said Umami, a food-tech start-up developing sustainable seafood that is cultivated and not caught, was recognized as the Best Sustainable Seafood Company in Southeast Asia by Acquisition International and as Best Sustainable Seafood Company in the 2022 Singapore Business Awards.
“We are impressed by the significant progress that Umami has made in various areas in such a short period of time. Since CULT invested in Umami, our management team has admired how the venture has taken stride after stride in a positive and valuable direction,” CULT CEO Lejjy Gafour said in a statement.
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CULT noted that Umami has established strategic collaborations with universities, including expanding its research collaboration with Nanyang Polytechnic, and corporate partners for spent media analysis, 3D structuring for prototyping, and fish fat development, while at the same time, reducing its costs of production in the last several months.
The start-up also recently secured funding to develop its plant-derived growth serum and low-cost production system for cultivated seafood after successfully establishing that its cell lines for eel and snapper differentiated into mature muscle and fat.
The pre-seed funding round was co-led by Better Bite Ventures, an Asia Pacific-focused alternative protein venture capital (VC) fund as well as Genedant, a VC fund investing in early-stage, deep-tech biomedical and agri-food start-ups in Asia, and included investors such as CULT, Impact Venture, Katapult Ocean, Plug & Play Ventures, Prithvi Ventures, The Yield Lab Asia Pacific, and Venture for America.
Umami plans to utilize the funds to establish robust and production-ready cell lines from multiple fish species, leverage its growth serum to enable production at price parity, and to mature production processes ahead of product demonstrations and taste tests, CULT said.
“We are delighted to have partnered with this group of like-minded investors who share our vision for sustainable seafood. Seafood is a $180 billion industry faced with growing global demand and supply that is increasingly volatile and under threat from climate change, overfishing, and ocean pollutants,” said Mihir Pershad, founder and CEO of Umami.
“Our investors’ commitment to a safer, healthier, and more sustainable food system, combined with deep industry knowledge in agri-food and alternative proteins, will be a valuable resource in establishing cultivated seafood as a viable, sustainable solution to the growing demand for seafood while reducing pressures on ocean ecosystems,” he added.
CULT said it has been predicted that food production must increase by 70% by 2050 in order to meet overall nutrition requirements and growing food demand.
Hence, it has become crucial for companies like itself and Umami to strive to integrate sustainably sourced fish and seafood into the global food security conversation, the company said, noting that an estimated 85% of marine fish stocks are either fully exploited or overfished.
“Cultivated seafood from Umami, as well as meat products, have the potential to provide protein without further exhausting the world’s natural resources, based on having a higher feed conversion ratio and similar nutritional value to traditional meat,” CULT added.
For this, the company plans to showcase its first product prototypes shortly, as well as move into a new dedicated office and lab space, while building a high-throughput, semi-automated platform for screening growth conditions to optimize cell line and media development.
To achieve new milestones, Umami recently added two senior scientists – Dr Dhiraj Singh as its new lead scientist of media development and Dr Louise Funke as an addition to the media development team.
“In the cellular agriculture sector, it is vital to secure funding, attract a strong team, prioritize research and development, understand commercialization, and be motivated to make the world a better place,” noted CULT CEO Gafour.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com