When you hear about meat alternatives you might think of plant-based meats, edible insects, or tofu substitutes, but what about alternative seafood? Alternative seafood follows the same logic as meat alternatives: creating plant-based or lab-grown substitutes to fish to offset carbon emissions and restore aquatic ecosystems affected by commercial fishing.
Not only does alternative seafood have the potential to replace many popular foods, it also presents an opportunity for investors as 2022 is poised to be a new record year for the sector. To date, $146M has been raised by startups in that category. This is on par with last year's investment and 3x increase since 2020. Lab-grown seafood startups accounted for 92% of the capital raised. In contrast, lab-grown meat accounted for 12% of capital raised in 2021 by alternative meat companies.
The most alternative seafood companies are based in Europe, 43%, followed by the US (35%) and Asia (14%). Asia has a low share of alternative seafood startups, but it is an important market. It will account for 73% of the seafood consumption increase, taking two-third of the world consumption by 2050.
On Dealroom.co, we've mapped 50+ alternative seafood companies that are reeling in investors. Discover these companies and click the button below. 👇
🇲🇽 How Mexican public health advocates fought Big Soda and won.A new documentary portrays the efforts to tax soda in Mexico at a time when Coca-Cola was more accessible than water and Type 2 diabetes was the leading cause of death. - Civil Eats
🇺🇸 Air Company, a New York-based CO2 transformation company, raised $30M in Series A funding led by Toyota Ventures. Launched in 2019, the company released a vodka made out of carbon dioxide. Since then the company launched a fragrance and hand sanitizer made from CO2.
🇮🇳 Urban Piper, an India-based restaurant delivery management platform, raised $24M Series B led by Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global. As the food delivery market expands, restaurants struggle to manage orders from multiple platforms. Urban Piper integrates delivery platforms into one dashboard.
Other notable foodtech deals from around the globe:
🇸🇪 Kavall, a Stockholm-based ultrafast delivery service, raised €15M Series A for expansion in the Nordics. There are 7 other grocery delivery services based in the Nordics.
🇳🇿 Leaft Foods raised $15M Series A to create protein from leaves. There are 160+ other startups enabling the production of alternative proteins that raised $1.3B last year.
🇮🇩 Hangry, a Jakarta-based virtual restaurant company, bagged $22M in debt and equity to acquire and launch its own culinary brands.
What are some of the fastest growing foodtech startups launched since 2021? There're 1.8K startups launched since last year. JOKR became a unicorn, Zepto is now valued at $570M, and Sunday raised $124M. Explore them all.
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