Already back in 2016, Milltrust International invested the first £10 million into the firm. This landmark investment was at the time the largest single agri-science investment in Europe, and became the very first investment of our British Innovation Fund, backed by one of the UK’s largest local authority pension funds.
This investment aims to fuel the company’s next wave of growth in its mission to become the leading provider of animal cell lines to the cultivated meat sector.
Cultivated meat is grown directly from animal cells without the need to raise animals, promising to improve animal welfare, lower antibiotics use and reduce the environmental footprint of food production.
High quality cell lines are needed to make cultivated meat safe, affordable and nutritious. Roslin Tech has developed pluripotent animal stem cells with the capacity to self-renew indefinitely and differentiate into desired end-tissues for meat.
Roslin Tech is making these cells available to cultivated meat producers globally, with customers so far in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The new funding should allow Roslin Tech to expand its cell line portfolio and to further develop the protocols for scale up of its cells into cost-competitive cell biomass for meat production. It will do so jointly with its customers, development collaborators and the University of Edinburgh.
The Edinburgh-based company will also invest in its insect venture, which focuses on breeding better insects for the emerging insect protein sector.
The Novo Holdings backing comes in addition to funding received from Scottish Enterprise and existing shareholders, including the University of Edinburgh’s venture capital fund Old College Capital and Future Planet Capital’s BIF Opportunities fund.
Ernst van Orsouw, chief executive of Roslin Tech, commented: “We are excited to welcome Novo Holdings and other investors on our journey to improve the food system – with the investment and strategic support, we can accelerate the develop of better cells for the sector and focus on making our customers successful.”
Nis Bak, principal at Novo Holdings and new board member of Roslin Tech, stated: “We’ve been impressed with Roslin Technologies’ team and innovative technologies, which have the potential to materially improve the production of novel, sustainable proteins.
“We are excited to invest alongside a strong syndicate of investors whose joint vision for Roslin Technologies and complementary capabilities will be a great asset to the company in its continued development.”
Antony Siau, founder of Kairos Capital Group and another new board member, said: “The combination of innovative technology, robust business model and expert scientific team makes Roslin Tech a uniquely qualified investment from our newly launched Kairos FoodTech Fund.”
Catherine Martin, vice principal of corporate services at the University of Edinburgh, added: “The scale of this new investment and the calibre of its source is a great testament to the expertise and experience of the Roslin Technologies team and a great indicator of likely future success.”
