CULT Food Science Corp (CSE:CULT, OTCQB:CULTF) announced that its portfolio company, De Novo Dairy, has secured funding from UM6P Ventures.
South Africa-based De Novo is the first precision fermentation company on the African continent within the alternative protein space.
The funding is expected to enable De Novo to accelerate the release of its first product into the African market in 2023, as well as allowing it to expand into the US in the future.
CULT Food announced its investment in De Novo Dairy in February 2022.
"De Novo is growing steadily and the funding is a key building block in its evolution. We are delighted to see other funders believe in De Novo and cellular agriculture just like we do,” said Lejjy Gafour, CEO of CULT in a statement.
READ: CULT Food Science says its affiliate, Vevolution, played a critical role in Impact Food’s closing of its $500,000 strategic round of financing
CULT Food also revealed that De Novo has appointed two new members to its strategic advisory board - Dr Lenore Newman and Dr Evan Fraser.
Newman is the director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser Valley in BC and has previously held a Canada Research Chair in food security.
She mentors companies and acts in an advisory role for a variety of agri-tech start-ups. Dr Newman was also a member of the BC Premier’s Task Force on food security, and still advises the government on policy. She has written multiple books and other publications and is a key leader in the North American food space.
Dr Evan Fraser is the director of the Arrell Food Institute and a professor of Geography at the University of Guelph. He works to bring together teams with the idea of developing strategies to produce and distribute accessible, healthy, and nutritious food while preserving the environment. Dr. Fraser is a researcher and co-author of over one hundred academic papers and book chapters.
He also has played a leadership role on multiple teams that have raised over one hundred million dollars in research funding and has mentored about 50 graduate students.
Dr Fraser was a Canada Research Chair from 2010-2020.
Commenting on the appointments, Gafour said “adding two terrific new advisors, Dr Newman and Dr Fraser, who are influential on the academic and policy sides of the food sector in Canada, is just what the advisory board needed”.
“We welcome them both and look forward to benefiting from their wisdom,” he said.
UM6P Ventures is the investment arm of UM6P, founded as a medium for the university to advance entrepreneurship and accelerate scientific innovation in Morocco and Africa.
CULT Food Science is an innovative investment platform with an exclusive focus on cellular agriculture that is advancing the development of novel technologies to provide a sustainable, environmental, and ethical solution to the global factory farming crisis.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com