Chinese biotech firm Avant nets $3.1m to commercialize cultivated meat

China’s Avant, a meat biotechnology startup, closed a US$3.1 million seed funding round to boost its research and development arm and help commercialize its products.

Investors such as China Venture Capital, AngelHub, ParticleX, Lever VC, CPT Capital, Loyal VC, Artesian, 208 Seed Ventures, PTG Food, and Markus Haefeli, chairman of Regal Springs, participated in the financing round.

Avant’s cultured fish maw / Photo credit: Avant Meats

Based in Hong Kong, Avant’s patent-pending proprietary technology produces animal-free proteins directly from fish cells through a fully contained bioprocess. The proteins are intended for use cases such as food and skincare.

Funds raised from the financing round will be used to lower production costs as the Chinese startup aims to bring its products to market in 2021.

“We will accelerate our work with the sustainable seafood and functional protein industries to accelerate the adoption of our products into existing global supply chains,” said Carrie Chan, CEO of Avant.

The market for alternative meat can reach US$140 billion over the next decade, according to Barclays analysts. They also said that the rapid pace of growth implies that the animal-free industry could capture about 10% of the US$1.4 trillion global meat market by that time.

“We see a growing appetite for consuming and investing in cultivated meat among our investors,” said Karen Contet, co-founder of AngelHub.

Various companies are now addressing the sustainable protein challenge. Aleph Farms, Clara Foods, Ecovative Design, and GoodDot are just a few of Avant’s global competitors. Another one is Eat Just, which recently got regulatory approval to sell lab-grown chicken meat in Singapore.

Avant Meats has raised funding from four rounds, with their last being a seed round in January this year, according to Crunchbase.

Correction (December 7, 12:15pm Singapore time): This article originally said the company raised US$1.6 billion in funding over nine rounds when Avant has raised funds from four rounds.