Gourmey Announces $10M Seed Round To Upscale Cultivated Poultry Meat

• Paris-based Gourmey, France's pioneering cultivated meat company, closes a $10M USD Seed round co-led by Point Nine and Air Street Capital, alongside Heartcore and Partech - the world's largest Seed round for a cultivated poultry startup.
• Gourmey creates delicious and sustainable restaurant-grade meats from real animal cells. These products produce less climate emissions and consume significantly less land and water.
• Using a scalable technology platform, Gourmey is tackling the $300 billion poultry market with an initial focus on premium meats produced directly from duck, chicken or turkey cells.
• The company develops a world-first as its flagship product: slaughter-free foie gras, followed by other sustainable poultry products.
• The new funding will be used to scale up its production capabilities in the very heart of Paris, gearing up for global commercialisation through the expansion of its poultry product portfolio and world-class team.

Paris, 14 July 2021 – Paris-based Gourmey, France's pioneering cultivated meat company, announced that it has raised $10M USD in new financing, the largest Seed round for a cultivated poultry startup to date. Point Nine and Air Street Capital co-led the oversubscribed financing with significant participation from Heartcore Capital and Partech.
The new funding will be used to scale up its production capabilities in the very heart of Paris, gearing up for global commercialisation through the expansion of its poultry product portfolio and world-class team.
Gourmey creates delicious and sustainable restaurant-grade meats from real animal cells. These products produce less climate emissions and consume significantly less land and water. “We believe there is a way to satisfy the world’s growing appetite for delicious meat without compromising on planetary health”, said CEO Nicolas Morin-Forest.
The company’s initial focus is on premium poultry meats. “Our mission is to reimagine meat for our uncompromising and conscious generation so that we have a chance to feed 10 billion people without devastating our environment. Poultry is the most consumed and fastest growing meat on the planet, so it is an obvious choice to maximize our impact”, explains Nicolas Morin-Forest. 
Gourmey has a unique strategy to accelerate cultivated meat adoption. “We focus on cultivated meats that we can deliver at price and taste parity faster, which is the main challenge for the industry. Foie gras, the single most premium and decadent poultry meat on the planet with a $2B market, is our flagship product. Other premium duck, chicken and turkey meats from the finest breeds are coming next”, added Nicolas Morin-Forest. 
The company has already held multiple successful tasting events of their early products, including their foie gras approved by a French Michelin-star chef. “What sets us apart is our focus on taste through gastronomic and food sciences. Not only do we have an extremely versatile and cost-efficient cell production platform, but we are able to reach an unmatched level of refinement thanks to our understanding of the complexity of meat right from the molecular level”, adds CTO Dr. Victor Sayous. “We have demonstrated this know-how on foie gras, which is arguably the most complex fine foods in the world, and we are now confidently expanding our product portfolio.”
“Cultivated meat is one of the most promising solutions to deliver energy-efficient, sustainable proteins to the world. However, taste parity will remain the key success factor. We have been truly impressed by Gourmey’s delicious products and the company’s ability to progress both on the science and the flavor at record speed”, said Christoph Janz, Managing Partner at Point Nine. 
The funding round also includes participation from leading alternative proteins investment firm Big Idea Ventures, Paris-based Eutopia, Silicon-Valley based Ataraxia, Beyond Investing, angel investors from the life science and food industries as well as significant support from public institutions including Bpifrance (French public investment bank) and the European Commission.
“We love Gourmey’s initial focus on culinary arts and premium meats as chef adoption will be critical to the success of cultivated meat”, added Andrew D Ive, General Managing Partner at Big Idea Ventures.
Gourmey has already met strong commercial interest from chefs and restaurants worldwide as well as leading meat and fine foods international distributors. The company is currently working with regulatory agencies on its plans for market entry in late 2022 or early 2023.
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About Gourmey
Gourmey’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition toward more ethical, sustainable and healthy meat. The company creates sustainable restaurant-grade meats directly from real animal cells with a significantly reduced impact to the environment. Founded in 2019 by CEO Nicolas Morin-Forest (ex-L’Oréal), CTO Dr. Victor Sayous, PhD in molecular biology and CSO Antoine Davydoff, cell biologist, the company is now a team of 22 world-class scientists and engineers in the fields of gastronomic and food sciences, bioprocess engineering as well as stem cell biology, including biotech veteran Dr. Patrick Champion-Arnaud who is the company’s  Director of Industrialisation.
● Gourmey’s website: www.gourmey.com● High-resolution images of Gourmey can be downloaded here.● For further information, including interview requests, please reach out to press@gourmey.com

About cultivated meat

Cultivated meat is real animal meat produced from animal cell culture, providing an efficient source of protein while reducing climate emissions and the demand for resources and land. A recent study by the Dutch University of Delft showed for instance that cultivated meat production reduces climate emissions by up to 92 percent compared to conventional methods and land use by up to 95 percent. The category could make up as much as 35 percent of the $1.8 trillion global meat market by 2040 (according to an estimate from consulting firm Kearney).

About Point Nine

Point Nine is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on B2B SaaS and online marketplaces. Since its inception in 2011, the firm has invested in more than 140 startups in more than 30 countries. Point Nine has been amongst the first seed investors in companies like Algolia, Brainly, Chainalysis, Clio, Contentful, Delivery Hero, DocPlanner, Front, Loom, Mambu, Revolut, Sqreen and Typeform and has one of the highest “seed-to-winner” rates of the industry. In August 2020, Point Nine announced the closing of a new €100M million fund, Point Nine Fund V.

About Air Street Capital 

Air Street Capital is a venture capital firm investing in AI-first technology and life science companies. We’re a team of experienced investors, founders, and senior leadership from companies including Google, Niantic, Lyft, Facebook, Apple, and DeepMind. We work with entrepreneurs across Europe and the US from the very beginning of their company building journey. Our portfolio includes Allcyte (acq. Exscientia), Anagenex, Gourmey, Graphcore, Intenseye, LabGenius, Mission Barns, V7 Labs, and ZOE. Learn more with our monthly industry analysis newsletter, your guide to AI, and our annual State of AI Report.

 
About Heartcore

Heartcore is Europe’s consumer technology VC firm. Founded in 2007, Heartcore currently manages over $650M in committed capital and has invested in close to 100 founding teams using technology to reinvent entire consumer categories and make consumers happy. Operating out of Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin and Austin they were among the first investors in companies such as GetYourGuide, Tink (acq. Visa), Boozt or Neo4j. 

About Partech

Born in San Francisco and Paris, Partech is one of the most active VCs in the world, bringing together capital, operational experience and strategic support for entrepreneurs at seed, venture and growth stages. The current portfolio includes 200 companies in more than 30 countries, of which 9 are valued at more than $1B.

About Big Idea Ventures

Big Idea Ventures (BIV) is solving the world's greatest challenges by supporting the world’s best entrepreneurs, scientists, and engineers. Big Idea Ventures develops the most globally strategic funds delivering significant investor returns while addressing real world challenges. BIV is focused on alternative protein with its New Protein Fund, innovations in the food industry to solve challenges in waste, water use, plastic use, and CO2 with its Generation Food Fund, and commercialization of university intellectual property with its Generation Food Rural Partners fund.