Latest News on Beyond Impact Portfolio Companies
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Thanks for your interest in the Beyond Impact funding programs for early stage/start-up companies with vegan, cruelty-free and/or animal replacing products and services. Beyond Impact is part of the larger Beyond Investing platform, the world's first vegan and cruelty-free investment services offering, creators of the US Vegan Climate Index. In this newsletter, we are pleased to share an update on companies in which we have invested, with a fuller discussion on the thesis for those that are recent inclusions. Investments are made not just based on the financial risk and reward but also on the impact, i.e. the actual number of animals that could be saved should these alternative products and services replace those which depend on the exploitation of animals. It is important to note that all investments have significant benefit to human health and the environment also. We hope you enjoy reading this update and would encourage you to contact us for a managed solution to investing in this area. Past copies of this update are available here. For those of you who are interested in direct investments, we would ask you to please complete this survey on ethical investment compiled by our sister company Beyond Animal which is working to provide a broader selection of funding solutions to growth companies in this area. News on companies invested in prior to September 2019 MOSA MEAT - Mosa Meat's headcount has expanded to 37 people (a number of whom are pictured below), from 17 different countries, requiring new temporary office and lab spaces. It has been making good progress with its research goals and is about to embark on pilot production using animal-free serum. Additional partnerships have also been announced with Nutreco, a global leader in nutritional solutions as well as Lowercarbon Capital who have a strong reputation through their venture arm Lowercase Capital of accelerating the growth of high tech companies. More info on these deals here SUPERMEAT - Supermeat, which is focusing on cell-based chicken, has established its cell line platform and adapted it to be best suited for scale-up, including testing in model systems. Thoughts on the future development of cell ag, and especially scale- up, from Ido Savir, CEO and co-founder of SuperMeat, are included in this article here. MINK SHOES - The launch of Von D Shoes, Mink's collaboration with celebrity tattoo artist and singer Kat Von D, took place on World Vegan Day, 1st November 2019, as publicised on the billboard pictured below. The first production run sold out in all styles within a matter of weeks and repeat production runs have been supplied to fulfil the explosive demand. PERFECT WORLD ICE CREAM - Perfect World continues to target leading UK supermarkets for 2020 launches and sell into Jumbo Netherlands. Market research indicates that its combination of low sugar and high vitamin content are important to consumers. In addition to the 8 flavours available in tubs, the company has developed choc ices that go head to head against the popular Magnum brand. GELTOR - The past months have seen some significant announcements from Geltor in terms of its future distribution capabilities for both cosmetic and food applications. In October, Geltor and GELITA announced its collaboration on an ingestible animal-free collagen protein. In November, Connell, a leading marketer and distributor of specialty chemicals and ingredients in Asia-Pacific, announced it becoming the exclusive distributor for Geltor products in the region. In December, Geltor named consumer goods industry veteran and former Unilever executive Gina Boswell to its Board of Directors. Ms. Boswell brings over 30 years of commercial experience from brands including Estée Lauder and Avon. At Unilever, she led the business delivery of $10 bn in revenue across all categories in the USA, including skincare, haircare, food, and beverage. EMULATE - Confirming the unsuitability of animals for testing of human drugs, Emulate announced the publication of research demonstrating that its Liver-Chip accurately modeled and predicted human toxicity in a range of eight previously- studied drugs. Results from the Liver-Chip study showed the ability to model the mechanism of action for hepatotoxicity, measure relevant clinical biomarkers, and predict species differences between human, dog, and rat liver drug toxicity for the drugs tested. The published research tested drugs for which human toxicity had not been predicted by animal studies and, as a result, the drugs advanced to human clinical trials that were subsequently halted due to lack of safety. The Liver-Chip predicted the human toxicity that was missed in the animal studies. ALGAMA – Algama hired President of the European Algae Biomass Association and established industry expert Jean Paul Cadoret as its Chief Scientific Officer. Jean Paul is a Marine Biologist and Molecular Biologist, a former Managing Director of a Biotech Company, Head of Research Unit at Ifremer (France) who has contributed to over 70 publications and seven patents. The company is hiring further staff and has moved to an office and lab closer to central Paris to facilitate recruitment. Below are pictured the brands range of low fat and egg-free mayonnaise marketed under the brand "The Good Spoon". RENEWAL MILL - Renewal Mill continues to identify novel uses for its upcycled okara flour in the vegan and free-from space, with its partnership with Square Baby, creator of a meal system for babies that delivers 100% Daily Nutrition, to incorporate organic okara flour into their customizable baby meal plans. The new meal, called “Peanut Pumpkin Pie” features okara as a way to facilitate early soy allergen exposure. The two companies, led by working mothers, who met at the Food Funded competition earlier this summer where Renewal Mill took the top prize, were drawn to each other for their similar missions of creating and using sustainable, natural ingredients to feed the next generation. Its organic okara flour is also a key upcycled ingredient in Pulp Pantry's new line of pulp chips (pictured below). BLUE NALU - Blue Nalu debuted a prototype of its yellowtail fish fillet in a culinary demonstration of a number of dishes, including those pictured below. In front of a small crowd gathered at San Diego Bay in December, a BlueNalu chef prepared the yellowtail in a variety of ways that span choices on typical restaurant menus from appetizers to soup to entree, including a kimchi recipe. These whole-muscle portions, derived directly from fish cells, performed in the same way as a conventional fish fillet in all applications. BlueNalu aims to launch its products into a test market during the next 18-24 months, expanding its range to other finfish species, including mahi mahi and red snapper. LIVEKINDLY - With a mix of programmatic ads, premium advertising and sponsored content and monetisation on Facebook and Youtube, revenues have been increasing. Across all platforms they are achieving over 100 million impressions per month, across 17.5 million users. Some top performing articles have attracted engagement of close to 1 million alone. Followers on Facebook have increased to 1.18 million, Instagram to 350,000 and they have 46,200 subscribers on Youtube. OCEAN HUGGER FOODS - Ocean Hugger Foods continues to expand its market penetration of its initial product, Ahimi (tomato-based alternative to raw tuna) and its new product Unami (eggplant-based alternative to unagi eel) throughout the US and Canada. The company launched in the UK market in 2020. SWISS DECODE - The company continues to make good progress towards obtaining ISO accreditation, which would enable direct competition with major food testing labs. The BeamItUp system which enables within factory secure sampling and testing for pathogens and cross-contamination should be ready for customer roll-out in 2Q 2020. MIGHTY SOCIETY - The Mighty Society rebranded its pea milk (see photo below) as Mighty Pea as part of its November 2019 relaunch with improved flavours of Unsweetened and Original and new Chocolate, Banana & Oat, Iced Latte (containing real Columbian coffee) in 1l and 330ml "grab-and-go" format as well as a Barista blend for coffee shops (see photo below). The company completed its fundraising for production and marketing of these new lines, the equity raise being topped off by a Seedrs crowdraise which overfunded by almost 50%. CLARA FOODS - in December 2019 Clara Foods cofounder Arturo Elizondo was selected as one of Forbes "30 under 30 - Science 2020" list. Following their 2Q fundraise the company is actively recruiting process scientists to scale production of its alternative proteins that replace whey protein isolate and egg white. The company's internal testing has shown that only its product can reproduce all the functionalities of eggs outperforming all plant-based alternatives. Its replacement for Pepsin, the chief digestive enzyme in the stomach, which breaks down proteins into polypeptides, has multiple uses across many industries, including silver recovery. Currently all commercial pepsin, a $30 million market growing at just under 10% p.a. comes from pigs. SHIOK MEATS - Shiok Meat has increased its team size to 9 (pictured below), including 6 scientists, 1 food technologist, 2 business/operations. It is working on cheaper food-grade culture media with a pharmaceutical company and another cell-based meat company to facilitate expansion of its shrimp production. Cofounder KaYi was recognised as one of the top Innovators under 35 by MIT Emtech Asia. MEATLESS FARM - Meatless Farm has spent much of the last quarter beefing up (pun intended!) its senior management team with the appointments of Lone Thomsen in September as CMO, from Coca Cola, and in December Jesper Højer, former global CEO of Lidl, joined as new Board Chair and Dr. Peter Hynes, who has a background at Unilever, Smith & Nephew and Taylors of Harrogate, joined as head of research and development.