San Diego-based Plantible Foods, a vertically integrated startup extracting the protein RuBisCo from the leafy green aquatic plant called lemna (duckweed), has raised $30 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Piva Capital and Siddhi Capital.
New investors, including Betagro Ventures, Cultivate Next (Chipotle Mexican Grill’s venture arm), and Nourish Ventures (from Griffith Foods), backed the startup and existing investor Astanor Ventures.
“We are setting a new standard for the industry by providing a product that offers superior functional and nutritional properties”
With the new capital, Plantible will expand its manufacturing operations to meet the “insatiable” demand for its sustainable and highly functional proteins for use in plant-based alternatives, baked goods, gluten-free products, pasta, and other applications.
Founder and CEO Tony Martens Fekini commented, “This funding will enable us to significantly expand our manufacturing capabilities and meet the rapidly growing demand for our Rubi Protein. At Plantible, we are not simply competing with other proteins; we are setting a new standard for the industry by providing a product that offers superior functional and nutritional properties.”
Multi-million dollar offtake agreements
Plantible has a new 100-acre commercial plant, “The Ranchito,” in West Texas and an R&D facility in Vista, California. Martens explained in an interview with a vegconomist that they had successfully developed the first commercial module, which served as a blueprint for mitigating risks and allowing the company to scale out.
With the expanded production, Plantible aims to increase its revenue tenfold over the next 12 months by fulfilling multi-million dollar offtake agreements with large food companies looking for cleaner, healthier, and allergen-friendly food ingredients, the company said.
Plantible’s Rubi Protein is said to outperform plant and animal proteins: it contains all the essential amino acids, is highly digestible, and offers functionalities such as gelling, binding, emulsification, and solubility, among others.
“Plantible’s highly functional protein is solving urgent food industry problems today”
According to the startup, Rubi Protein enables food companies to enhance ingredients rather than replace them, delivering products with improved taste, texture, health, environmental footprint, and optimized costs. In the US, duckweed protein is self-GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe).
Steven Finn of Siddhi Capital said, “Plantible’s highly functional protein is solving urgent food industry problems today. Their focus on superior functionality, modular scaled manufacturing, nutritional value, and consumer-friendly clean labels convinced us that they have the right team, product, and approach to revolutionize the global food system.
“Their technology and vertically integrated manufacturing are already serving customers at scale and will improve supply chain resilience in a sustainable way with impacts reaching far beyond the plant-based alternatives market.”
Need for innovations for F&B
Founded in California in 2018, Plantible Foods has developed a technology to extract RuBisCO from duckweed. The plant is grown on aquafarms, requiring no arable land and taking in ten times more CO2 than a healthy forest. Additionally, growing duckweed requires ten times less water per kilogram of protein than soy, almost 100 times less than beef, and doubles in mass every 48-72 hours.
In 2021, Plantible raised $21.5 million to expand its product line featuring Rubi Protein, successfully launching an egg replacer suitable for baked goods and a clean-label alternative to methylcellulose designed to act as a binder in meat and seafood alternatives.
Issam Dairanieh, Venture Partner at Piva Capital, shared, “The food and agriculture industry is in need of innovative solutions, and Plantible’s product enhances existing ingredients and supply chains rather than simply replacing them. The ability to deliver all of that and keep a ‘clean label’ is highly attractive to clients and important to customers.
“We are excited to continue to support Tony, Maurits, and the team in this next phase of growth as they scale their manufacturing and bring their clean and sustainable protein to a wider market.”
