Integriculture Inc. closes seed round led by Real Tech Fund at JPY 300 million
next- Integriculture Inc. closes seed round led by Real Tech Fund at JPY 300 million -
May 25th, 2018
Integriculture Inc., a cellular agriculture and cultivated meat company that reforms modern food system has closed a financing round led by Real Tech Fund at JPY 300 million. Other investors include Beyond Next Ventures, A-FIVE (Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Fund Corporation for Innovation, Value-chain and Expansion Japan (a Japanese government fund)), MTG Co., Ltd., euglena Co., Ltd., Dr. Hiroaki Kitano (CEO of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc. and other investors.
With this financing round, Integriculture Inc. targets early market entry of cellular agriculture products by building the pilot plant and the first commercial plant. Both plants will feature company’s patented “CulNet System”, a general-purpose large-scale cell culture system.
For details, please refer to the following announcement.
Announcement of Third-Party Allocation of New Shares
-The JPY 300M financing round accelerates cellular agriculture initiatives for a sustainable food system-
Integriculture Inc. (Headquarters: Tokyo, CEO: Yuki Hanyu, hereinafter referred to as “Integriculture”), a food tech company aiming to reform current agriculture through “cultivated meat” production, won the right to investment at the “2nd Agriscience Grand Prix” organized by Leave a Nest Co.,ltd. Integriculture exercised this right on Dec 28th 2016, thereby securing funds through third-party allotment of new shares to GLOCALINK Inc, a subsidiary of Leave a Nest Co.,ltd.
Integriculture Inc. (Headquarters: Tokyo, CEO: Yuki Hanyu, hereinafter referred to as “Integriculture Inc.”), a cellular agriculture and cultivated meat company that reforms modern food system has closed a financing round led by Real Tech Fund at JPY 300 million. Other investors include Beyond Next Ventures, A-FIVE (Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Fund Corporation for Innovation, Value-chain and Expansion Japan (a Japanese government fund)), MTG Co., Ltd., Euglena Co., Ltd., Dr. Hiroaki Kitano (CEO of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc. and other investors.
1. Technology
Integriculture Inc. aims to solve the sustainability, food security and public health problems associated with modern factory farming method for meat production, by making clean meat affordable to general consumers.
Producing 100g of clean meat by existing cell culture methodology costed several million yen. Integriculture Inc. developed patented general-purpose large-scale cell culture system, “CulNet system” that can culture wide range of cells without external addition of expensive growth factors. The company demonstrated cultivated chicken foie gras (cultured liver cells) 1 year ahead of schedule in 2017 and demonstrated that cells can be cultured at prices less than 10,000yen (~$95) per 100g. Since then, the company is attracting tractions from food, supplements and cosmetics companies.
- Future Business
Integriculture Inc.’s “CulNet System” is capable of producing wide range of cells and their metabolites inexpensively without fears of contamination.
The company plans to build a pilot plant within 2018, and the first commercial plant around the end of 2019 to 2020 to scale “CulNet system” and correspondingly bring down the cell culture costs. The company also plans to launch the first product in cosmetics and supplements sector in early 2020 and gradually add more cellular agriculture products including food to its product lines through 2020’s.
By mid-2020’s, the company plans to achieve price prity of cultivated meat with conventional meat to provide increasingly anticipated secure and sustainable protein.
- Integriculture’s Culture Medium
The cost of culture medium at Integriculture Inc. was reduced by replacing the expensive fetal bovine serum (FBS) with inexpensive “FBS substitutes” found in common food. By using this medium in “CulNet system”, the company brings down the price of culture medium to 10 yen or less per liter, a thousandth to ten thousandth fold reduction. - About the “CulNet system”
“CulNet system” enhances the effectiveness of the aforementioned inexpensive culture medium by generating multiple cell growth factors within the system in a tuneable way, thereby enabling highly efficient cell culture method for wide range of cells.
Unlike the conventional disposable batch system, the “CulNet system” is a continuous flow process, meaning that its system can be easily scaled through parallelization and upsizing. - Cellular agriculture
Cellular agriculture is an interdisciplinary branch of science combining biology and engineering, focused on the production of agricultural products from cell cultures. Cultivated meat is anticipated to provide sustainable protein source for the future.
【Contact】
Integriculture Inc.（Attn: Hanyu）
E-mail: info@integriculture.jp