Silicon Valley-based cellular agriculture company Mission Barns has announced a $24M Series A to scale up its cultivated fat technology and build a pilot manufacturing plant in the Bay Area.

Mission Barns is focused on cultivating animal fat—without the animal. Its technology platform enables starting from a handful of pork, poultry, or beef cells and feeding them a plant-based feedstock inside a cultivator. Over a short period of time, the novel process creates real, pure animal fat that delivers the mouthfeel and flavor of meat without raising and slaughtering live animals and uses a fraction of the carbon emissions, water, and land required by conventional animal agriculture.

The first commercial application of Mission Fat is in plant-based meat. Consumers repeatedly cite flavor, mouthfeel, and meatiness as the leading hurdles to regularly purchasing plant-based meat products.

CEO Eitan Fischer said: “Time and again, we see that the addition of Mission Fat to plant proteins makes alternative meat products in any number of categories far outperform the incumbent plant-based options.”

The company has developed products incorporating Mission Fat in various categories both on its own and through collaboration with leading meat companies and plant protein partners. Applications include bacon, breakfast patties, burgers, nuggets, dumplings, hot dogs, poultry sausages, meatballs, and more.

The Series A funding will be used to scale up and commercialize its Mission Fat technology. Global food and agriculture investors participated in the round, including Lever VC; Gullspang Re: Food (Oatly); Humboldt Fund (NotCo & Geltor); Green Monday Ventures (Beyond Meat & Perfect Day); Enfini Ventures (Impossible Foods & Memphis Meats); and a European meat company. Other investors in the round included Blue Ledge Capital, Prithvi Ventures, and Joyance Partners.

Several Seed investors increased their stake in the company, including Global Founders Capital (Facebook & LinkedIn), Point Nine Capital (Delivery Hero); Better Ventures; and Cantos Ventures.

Nick Cooney, Managing Partner of Lever VC, said: "I've been sampling plant-based meats for 20 years from a huge variety of brands globally, and have never tasted anything as meat-like as products containing Mission Fat. This is going to be a game-changer for the alternative meat sector because it's going to help brands around the world have a dramatically better product almost overnight.”

Mission Barns’ team includes senior biotechnology experts from Genentech & Sigma-Aldrich; culinary leaders from Michelin-starred The French Laundry & Thomas Keller Restaurant Group; and veterans from other cellular agriculture companies, including JUST & Memphis Meats.

The company has been growing quickly and is actively looking for passionate team members who want to be at the forefront of revolutionizing the global food system. A large number of technical and non-technical roles can be found on its careers page: MissionBarns.com/Careers

Mission Barns is partnering with leading meat and alternative protein companies globally and is open to further partnership opportunities to utilize its Mission Fat technology.

If you want to contact Mission Barns, please use the 'Request Information' below or visit their website.