Bay area creator of animal-free dairy, Perfect Day, today announces the expansion of its Series C to $300 million through a new tranche led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), following increased interest after production breakthroughs in the company’s proprietary flora-made dairy proteins.
Perfect Day closed its initial $140 million C round shared late last year, and since then has doubled its ability to produce its unique protein, while substantially reducing costs several years ahead of expectations. The company reports that these production milestones, as well as the expanded Series C and extra support from previous investors Temasek and Horizons Ventures — mark the beginning of a new chapter for the alt dairy brand.
Perfect Day’s flora-made protein also recently achieved a major regulatory milestone in the successful completion of FDA’s review of its Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) status.
“We never doubted we’d reach this point, we just didn’t expect to get here so quickly,” said Ryan Pandya, co-founder and CEO of Perfect Day. “And, thanks to our world-class team and investors, we’re not planning to take our foot off the pedal anytime soon. The coronavirus pandemic has shown just how fragile our food system is. We’re committed to building real change that prioritizes diversity, agility, and resilience.”
Perfect Day holds a unique advantage in that through producing dairy proteins through fermentation in microflora instead of cows, the company and its partners can quickly increase or decrease production depending on demand. The company also plans to build a turnkey network of localized animal-free dairy protein producers and processors to avoid unnecessary supply chain bottlenecks.
“This marks the first investment into Thematic Investing’s new Climate Change Opportunities strategy, which will focus on innovative companies that are well-positioned to respond to the challenges posed by climate change,” said Leon Pedersen, Managing Director, Head of Thematic Investing, CPP Investments. “Sustainable technologies like Perfect Day are poised to capture structural shifts in industrial practices, physical resources and consumer preferences for environmentally conscious options, which are well-suited to our long term investing approach. We look forward to building our partnership with the company and its management team.”
“We’re grateful for the continued support of our investors from all over the world,” said Perumal Gandhi, co-founder of Perfect Day. “But, of course, our mission is about much more than money. We continue to believe the next generation of protein will be driven by production speed, price, and taste, and we’ll have several exciting updates to share in the months ahead as our commercial partners start to build momentum.”