Paris-based cultivated meat startup, Gourmey picks €48M largest Series A round to date

Gourmey, a Paris-based startup pioneering cultivated meat company, has raised €48M in an oversubscribed Series A round led by Earlybird Venture Capital.

Instacart CEO Fidji Simo of Amsterdam-based Keen Venture Partners, as well as current investors Heartcore Capital, Point Nine Capital, Air Street Capital, Partech, and Beyond Investing, are also participating investors.

Along with participation from Paris-based Omnes Capital and Eutopia, Berlin-based Discovery, Singapore-based Thia Ventures, and backing from government organizations like Bpifrance, the current funding round also includes participants from Paris (French public investment bank).

With the money, Gourmey will be able to establish a 46,000-square-foot commercial production plant and R&D center in Paris, Europe’s largest hub for the production of cultured meat, to create products and accelerate worldwide commercialization.

Additionally, in partnership with chefs, culinary partners, and food distributors, the company will increase its 40+ elite team members and broaden its product offering. To date, the company has raised €56M in funding.

“Food is the single most effective way for each of us to slow down climate change individually. So now, as we transition from research and development to production and commercialization with the construction of one of the largest cultured meat factories, we are happy to witness our vision of a more sustainable food system come to reality, said Nicolas Morin-Forest, co-founder and CEO of Gourmey.

Founded in 2019 by Nicolas Morin-Forest, Victor Sayous, and Antoine Davydoff, Gourmey aims to hasten the transformation of the globe toward healthier, more ethical beef.

The French company primarily focuses on creating premium meats from real animal cells to produce sustainable culinary-grade meats. Similar to Evolved Meats, Beyond Meat, Planted, Upside Foods, and other businesses, Gourmey operates.

The company claims that producing meat using agricultural methods uses substantially less water and land and can reduce climate impact by up to 92%.

120 engineers, chefs, and operators are expected to work at Gourmey’s first-ever commercial production plant and hub for cultured meat by 2024.

With its hallmark product being slaughter-free foie gras, it will have a targeted yearly production capacity of tens of thousands of pounds of high-quality farmed meats.

Leading meat wholesalers worldwide and Michelin-starred chefs have already been won over by Gourmey’s products. According to Nicolas Morin-Forest, the coming months and years will be extremely important turning points and exciting not only for Gourmey but also more broadly for farmed meat and sustainable foods.

This is the first transaction in France since Earlybird established a physical presence there, indicating a keen interest in making investments there. “Gourmey is in a good position to lead the paradigm shift toward a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient food supply chain and to win on a global scale. The company’s outstanding staff has shown how bottlenecks in so-called frontier technologies can be removed quickly, according to Christian Nagel, Partner & Co-Founder at Earlybird Venture Capital.

“As early backers, we have always been amazed by Gourmey’s quick success. Yacine Ghalim, Partner at Heartcore Capital, exclaims, “We are eager to double down and assist their world-class team as they elevate meat substitutes to gourmet heights.

“Gourmey has produced its ground-breaking goods more quickly and cheaply than its competitors, in large part due to the team’s extraordinary innovation in the fields of stem cells, bioprocess engineering, and food sciences. According to Nathan Benaich, General Partner at Air Street Capital, “Their technique is generalizable across varied mammalian tissues on enormous scales, which tracks a clear road to become a platform food company.”

Image Credit: Gourmey