{"id":14352,"date":"2024-10-18T10:27:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-18T17:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/18\/fermentation-fuels-q3-2024-alt-protein-investments-while-growing-beef-the-spoon\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T21:24:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T04:24:06","slug":"fermentation-fuels-q3-2024-alt-protein-investments-while-growing-beef-the-spoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/18\/fermentation-fuels-q3-2024-alt-protein-investments-while-growing-beef-the-spoon\/","title":{"rendered":"Fermentation Fuels Q3 2024 Alt-Protein Investments, While Growing Beef &#8211; The Spoon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>This week, the Good Food Institute released its quarterly alt-protein review, so I thought it would be a good time to check in and see which way things are trending.<\/p>\n<p>At this point it&#8217;s well known that the alt-protein investment landscape has had a tough few years, and the latest numbers show that things remain tough. <\/p>\n<p>According to information shared by GFI, other protein companies earned $233 million in Q3 2024\u2014down 37% from Q2, but up 25% year over year. The decline from Q2 is significant, outpacing the 20% decline in the entire corporate capital market. However, 25% year-on-year growth in Q3 is a potential bright spot and could indicate that the second half of 2023 marks a low point for the overall market.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\"><em>Source: GFI<\/em><\/p>\n<p>GFI also breaks things down by subsector, and it&#8217;s clear that fermentation technology is where investors are placing their bets:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Plant-based proteins<\/strong> raised $56 million in Q3, bringing the total for the year to $194 million.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fermentation technology<\/strong>which saw the largest share of investment, raising $174 million in Q3, with $572 million invested year to date.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cultured meat and seafood<\/strong> companies earned $3 million in Q3, bringing it to $133 million year to date.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It&#8217;s important to note that alt-protein&#8217;s overall investment numbers can be heavily influenced by a few big deals. For example, Q2 2024 saw $118 million invested in the cultured meat industry, mainly driven by a $55 million Series B investment in Prolific Machines, a cultured meat infrastructure company, and a $42 million investment in Dutch cultured meat portal Mosa Meat. These large deals resulted in an average deal size of $10 million for farmed meat in Q2, compared to a smaller amount of $396,000 in Q3 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, Q3 fermentation investment numbers were heavily impacted by two large deals: a $61 million investment in startup Formo for its Koji cheese products and a $45 million Series B round for precision fermentation startup Helaina, focused on its human lactoferrin product.<\/p>\n<p>GFI notes that continuing low interest rates could provide a boost to the alt-protein space, but cautions that the cost of capital remains relatively high. They continue to encourage alt-protein startups to explore non-traditional funding sources, such as loans and government-backed programs.<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead, I predict that fermentation-based startups will remain a very attractive area for investors in the coming year. Investments in farmed meat startups will likely focus on infrastructure players with game-changing technologies, such as Production Machinery. Meanwhile, many farmed meat startups that have raised significant rounds in the past few years to expand production have put those plans on hold as they work to expand their funding pipelines in this ongoing VC winter.<\/p>\n<p>According to GFI, the alt-protein space has seen a total of $16.3 billion invested since 2015, a respectable total but still small compared to other sustainability-focused sectors. To give you an idea of \u200b\u200bhow small this gap is compared to other sectors, the solar industry has raised $6.9 billion in 2023 alone, and that number jumps to $34.3 billion when corporate financing is included.  <\/p>\n<p>One thing that space needs to attract big dollars is an attractive exit view. Overall, alt-protein exits have been disappointing, as have been the results of those companies that have gone public. Until we see a major success story for investors in this space, the dollar may remain weak relative to other markets.  <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, the Good Food Institute released its quarterly alt-protein review, so I thought it would be a good time to check in and see which way things are trending. At this point it&#8217;s well known that the alt-protein investment landscape has had a tough few years, and the latest numbers show that things remain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-smart-home"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14354,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14352\/revisions\/14354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}