Cell-Based Seafood Company Raises $60 Million As Investors Go Big On Vegan Seafood
The unprecedented fundraising round for San Diego-based BlueNalu shows the huge appetite for truly sustainable seafood sourced from fish cells.
BlueNalu team members holding four menu items that demonstrate BlueNalu's whole-muscle, cell-based yellowtail prepared three ways. Credit: BlueNalu
A cell-based seafood company has raised an unprecedented $60 million from investors as the wider seafood industry races to move towards more sustainable solutions.
Innovative, cutting-edge startups are employing food scientists and leading nutritionists to create cell-based versions of seafood. Cell-based seafood, also known as lab-grown or cultured seafood, looks and tastes just like seafood farmed from the sea, but instead uses fish cells to grow the product in a lab rather than on a sentient fish.
Now companies like BlueNalu are meeting the huge demand to get sustainable cell-based seafood on the market as soon as possible. And thanks to the San-Diego based company’s staggering latest fundraising round that takes its financing to $60 million, the future of seafood is arriving even sooner than we thought.
BlueNalu has already opened a nearly 40,000 square foot pilot production facility in San Diego, and is set to test in the marketplace in a variety of foodservice establishments throughout the United States soon.
BlueNalu's whole-muscle, cell-based yellowtail medallions atop a bisque of roasted butternut squash. Credit: BlueNalu
Among its first products to launch will be cell-based mahi mahi later this year, followed by premium bluefin tuna.
With 2.7 billion wild fish killed every single day and fish stocks around the world at risk of depletion, investors and industry leaders see cell-based seafood as capable of revolutionizing the entire industry.
“The current seafood industry cannot keep up with demand. We are overfishing the oceans, killing billions of fish each year, risking the lives of fishermen and damaging delicate ecosystems in the process”, explains Chris Kerr, a BlueNalu investor and Chief Investment Officer of Unovis/New Crop Capital . “BlueNalu will bring delicious and healthy cell-based seafood to consumers around the world while preserving our environment, honoring animal welfare, and protecting people.”
Find out more on how vegan seafood can save our oceans from collapse.
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