Singapore’s Shiok Meats has raised US$3 million in bridge funding from Agronomics, VegInvest, Impact Venture, and Mindshift Capital Fund in the UAE. This latest funding marks a total of US$7.6 million of investment to date for the producer of cultured seafood. We spoke to Shiok Meat’s founder and CEO Dr. Sandhya Sriram about the news.
The startup, which focuses on cell-based shrimp, will utilise the investment to establish a production facility in Singapore and plans to commercialize business in the next two to three years, as first reported by techasia.com, with hopes of reducing the production costs for a kg of cultured shrimp from the current $5,000 to a target of $50.
Speaking with vegconomist today, Dr. Sriram said, “We at Shiok Meats are happy for the continued support and encouragement from investors and the industry. The COVID pandemic has further confirmed the need for alternative proteins and we truly believe that cell-based seafood is the way to go!”
In an interview with vegconomist in January 2019, the CEO said that her aim is to be the market leader for cellbased seafood, and that regarding the future she believes that ” cell-based meat will replace “traditional” meat – but probably in 10 or 15 years time. If it does not, we are not going to have enough meat to feed the world if produced in the traditional way. We are moving towards the correct direction of employing cellular agriculture for meat production.”