IntegriCulture Inc. Closes Series A Fundraising Round Led by Beyond Next Ventures at JPY800 Million

TOKYO, May 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- IntegriCulture Inc. has completed a Series A fundraising round of JPY800 million (USD7.4 million) backed by Beyond Next Ventures, NH Foods, AgFunder and other investors. The cumulative amount raised stands about JPY1.1 billion (USD10.2 million).

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Series A investors

• Beyond Next Ventures
• NH Foods
• Real Tech Fund
• AgFunder
• Mr. Naruhisa Nakagawa (Caygan Capital Ltd. CEO and CIO), investment as an individual investor
• Hiroshima Venture Capital
• VU Venture Partners and other investors

Use of fund

• Research and development of cell culture technology, investment in facilities and equipment, staffing and operational costs

Latest developments and future milestones

• IntegriCulture Inc. launched two cellular agriculture infrastructure enterprise solutions packages under a "Uni-CulNet (R)" scheme on May 7, 2020.

CulNet System units will be provided to clients by rent or on a sales basis to roll out the cellular agriculture infrastructure.

CulNet Pipeline: An enterprise solution to commercialize clients' cellular agriculture product

CulNet Consortium: The CulNet consortium welcomes domestic and global participants in five fields -- cell source, culture medium, CulNet hardware, product bioreactor, and product processing to build cellular agriculture infrastructure.

- Future milestones:
Food grade culture medium and cultured serum:
Launch of food grade culture medium "SpaceSalt" in summer 2020 on e-commerce platforms including crowdfunding
Launch of cosmetics product based on cultured serum in spring 2021, by direct-to-consumer model

Cell-based meat: Launch of cell-based foie gras in 2021, processed meat in 2023 and steak in 2025

Uni-CulNet: CulNet System technology is deployed to clients from May 2020 and will be updated every two to three years for larger scale and lower costs.

- Further milestones: Options such as cultured serum supplements, cell-cultured non-food products such as leather and fur, and cell-cultured products for medical applications remain open.

Use of funds raised

1. Functional compounds:
   Anti-aging cosmetics product based on IntegriCulture's unique ingredient (cultured serum) will be launched in April 2021 by D2C model. The funds will be used for R&D, production, marketing, branding and staffing.
   
2. Cell-based meat:
   Cell-based foie gras production site will be built in 2020 to prepare for 2021 launch. The funds will be used for R&D, facilities and equipment, and staffing.
   
3. Uni-CulNet:
   R&D, facilities and equipment, staffing, and operational costs of the CulNet Consortium

Comments by Yuki Hanyu, CEO, IntegriCulture Inc.

"The funds will be used to build accessible cellular agriculture to make 2021 the Year One of democratized cellular agriculture."

Comments by stakeholders

Rob Leclerc, Founding Partner, AgFunder
"I don't think anyone else on the planet has given more thought to how to solve the problems of cultivated meat than Yuki. Bringing down the cost of cell culture media is the central challenge for all cultivated meat companies and IntegriCulture has the most elegant solution we've seen to solve this problem."

J. Skyler Fernandes, General Partner, VU Venture Partners
"IntegriCulture's technology makes the production of cultured meat affordable at scale, and will rapidly increase the commercialization for the next generation of meat brands."

About IntegriCulture Inc.

The company's unique patented "CulNet System," a general-purpose large-scale cell culture system, is a biotechnology platform capable of producing animal cell-based food and materials such as meat, leather and other products. By culturing target cells with growth factor source cells in connected bioreactors, the "CulNet System" emulates natural animal body endocrine systems to produce cultured serum. The cultured serum then efficiently and inexpensively cultures target cells without relying on immortalization or externally added foetal bovine serum or growth factors. The system in theory can culture any given animal cells and offers a wide range of applications in food, medical, biochemical and materials products.

IntegriCulture will demonstrate businesses based on the CulNet System and offers the technology to global clients as cellular agriculture infrastructure. The company hopes this biotechnology platform will provide means to meet the U.N. SDGs in the food sector and to achieve democratization of cellular agriculture, in which citizens can produce cellular agriculture products of any categories including food, medical, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, chemicals and materials. Then IntegriCulture can build a sustainable civilization full of creative citizens and rich with their cultures on Earth and beyond.

Company overview

Company name: IntegriCulture Inc.
CEO: Yuki Hanyu
Founded: October 23, 2015
Address: TWIns 3F N101, Kawada-cho, Shinjuku, Tokyo, 162-8666, Japan
Business overview: Cell-cultured meat, food, cosmetics and functional compounds produced by "CulNet System (TM)," a general-purpose large-scale cell culture system

Website: https://integriculture.jp/?locale=en

SOURCE IntegriCulture Inc.

Related Links

https://integriculture.jp