Ecovative

Forager leather jacket, Ecovative Design

Forager leather jacket, Image credit Vasil Hnatiuk
Fungi, Mushrooms & Mycelium

Ecovative Secures $30M in Series E: “It’s Amazing What Mushrooms Can Do”

New York-based Ecovative Design LLC, the global leader in mycelium technology, announces the initial closing of a Series E funding round, surpassing $30 million. The funds will enable Ecovative to realize its ambitions of expanding its Forager business into a premier provider of sustainable textile and foam products worldwide.  Viking Global Investors spearheaded the round, joined by investors such as Standard Investments, Robert Downey Jr.’s FootPrint Coalition Ventures, and AiiM Partners. With the fresh capital, Ecovative has now accumulated a total of $120 million in funding to date. Half of the investment, $15 million, will be reinvested into its food subsidiary, MyForest Foods Co., which was established in 2020. The funds allocated to MyForest Foods, whose flagship product is mycelium bacon product MyBacon, will facilitate …

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MyForest Foods Bacon

© MyForest Foods
Fungi, Mushrooms & Mycelium

MyForest Foods Opens ‘World’s Largest’ AirMycelium Vertical Farm and Expands MyBacon Retailers

MyForest Foods Co., maker of mycelium-based MyBacon, announces the opening of Swersey Silos, a new vertical farm dedicated to scaling the brand’s popular mushroom bacon. Utilizing AirMycelium technology, the farm is part of 120,000 sq. ft. of new infrastructure MyForest is building to serve one million consumers by 2024.   Located in Green Island, NY, Swersey Silos was designed and constructed by Ecovative, the mycelium materials company that spun off MyForest in 2020. Using patented AirMycelium technology, the farm is the largest facility of its kind, and is capable of producing nearly 3 million pounds of MyBacon annually. With the opening of another facility in Saratoga Springs, NY this fall, MyForest projects it can serve one million consumers by the year 2024. This autumn, the brand …

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Magical Mushroom Company packaging

©Magical Mushroom Company
Fungi, Mushrooms & Mycelium

Magical Mushroom Company Secures €3.4M in Seed Round Featuring Ecovative and Ecotricity

UK-based startup Magical Mushroom Company has raised around €3.4 million in a seed round led by mycelium specialist Ecovative Design with participation by Dale Vince, founder of green energy company Ecotricity. Founded in 2019,  Magical Mushroom Company produces hundreds of thousands of pieces of packaging for international brands including BA Components, Castrads,  Ffern, Selfridges, Lush, Seedlip and ID Watch. The startup combines agricultural waste with mycelium to create packaging that is biodegradable, durable and comparable in price to conventional, unsustainable packaging. The product breaks down naturally in the ground in around 45 days without added additional chemicals. The funds will be invested in the opening of Magical Mushroom Company’s first raw material production plant in Nottinghamshire, as well as to upscale existing packaging plants in …

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MyForest Foods Bacon

© MyForest Foods
Food & Beverage

MyForest Foods Closes $15M Venture Loan for Whole Cut Mycelium Bacon

Horizon Technology Finance Corporation, a leading specialty finance company, announces it closed a $15 million venture loan to MyForest Foods Co., which produces mycelium-based bacon. Horizon states it funded $7.5 million toward the venture loan facility, with another $7.5 million contributed by advisor Horizon Technology Finance Management LLC. MyForest plans to use the loan proceeds for company growth and working capital purposes. Formerly known as Atlast, MyForest says it produces whole-cut animal-free meats from mycelium, the underground root structures of mushrooms. MyForest’s first product is MyBacon – gourmet strips created to offer the same taste, smokiness and crunch of traditional pork bacon. “Hyper-focused” on scaling Made from just six ingredients, MyBacon’s first pre-order sale sold out of its entire planned production run back in 2020. …

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Eben Bayer, founder of Ecovative & MyForest Foods

Eben Bayer, founder of Ecovative & MyForest Foods. Image supplied
Interviews

Eben Bayer: “Ecovative Has Engineered Mycelium Structures That Out-Perform Plastic, Leather, Even Meat”

It’s been a couple of years since we last spoke with Eben Bayer, and to say he has been busy since 2020 is quite the understatement. The founder and CEO of Ecovative Design and MyForestFoods Co. (previously known as Atlast) is inarguably one of the most active and prominent global players in the wonderful world of mycelium. Here are just a few of Bayer’s incredible achievements since the last Q&A with vegconomist: Nov 2020: Atlast Food Co launches its mushroom-based bacon alternative April 2021: Ecovative raises $60M in a Series D, for mycelium based packaging, alt leather, and bacon. April 2021:  Atlast Food Co secures $40 million from investors including Robert Downey Jr.’s Footprint Coalition Ventures, bringing the total raise to $100M Jan 2022: The …

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Forager mushroom ecovative

©Forager
Company News

Ecovative Leading Fungi Food and Biomaterial Revolution with Mycelium Technologies 

Materials science company Ecovative has recently announced Forager – a division focused on designing, marketing, and manufacturing vegan materials for the fashion and automotive industries. With Ecovative leading the mycelium revolution in food and biomaterials, vegconomist takes a look at the growing business network of the company with Eben Bayer at the helm. Forager Mycelium pioneer Ecovative has set up Forager to advance next-generation biomaterials such as plastic-free, leather-like materials and foams, made from mycelium rather than animals or petroleum. Utilizing Ecovative’s AirMycelium technology, Forager will produce large sheets of pure mycelium material at a commercial scale for a range of fashion applications. Ecovative Co-founder and CCO Gavin McIntyre will present Forager at the Materials Innovation Initiative Conference in May, 2022. “Forager is launching at …

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MyForest Foods Name Change Bacon

©MyForest Foods
Company News

Atlast Rebrands to MyForest Foods As It Prepares to Upscale Mushroom Bacon

Alt-meat startup Atlast Food Co. announces the company is officially re-branding as MyForest Foods. The new name is meant to reflect the natural growing environment of mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms used to make alternative protein.  Founded in 2020, MyForest Foods utilizes mycelium’s dense and meaty texture to create realistic, animal-free bacon. Through proprietary AirMycelium cultivation, developed by parent company Ecovative, MyForest Foods is able to control the mycelium’s specific shape and thickness throughout the growth process, imitating the same environmental regulations found in nature. Mycelium bacon boom The company will continue to produce MyBacon, the brand’s flagship whole-cut, fungi-based bacon product, with additional product releases planned. Earlier this month, MyForest Foods announced a partnership with Canada’s Whitecrest Mushrooms Ltd. to commercialize MyBacon on …

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Atlast bacon Ecovative

Atlast bacon ©Ecovative
Company News

Atlast Food Co. Partners with Whitecrest Mushrooms for Mycelium Bacon Boom

Atlast Food’s partnership with Whitecrest Mushrooms will bring MyBacon strips to market over 2022 Atlast Food Co. – the mycelium-based alt meat specialist – has announced a new partnership with Whitecrest Mushrooms Ltd. to produce Atlast’s MyBacon strips at commercial scale. The move follows a successful trial with Ecovative’s AirMycelium technology, which allows for whole-cut alt meat mycelium products.  Atlast is an affiliate of Ecovative – a market leader in mycelium technologies headed by Eben Bayer– whose technology allows the creation of such whole-cut mycelium-based products as Atlast’s MyBacon strips. Mycelium is the vegetative root structure of mushrooms, containing complete proteins that mimic traditional meat cuts in both texture and flavor. Whitecrest is a high-tech mushroom producer based in Canada and the partnership will see …

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Eben Bayer, Ecovative

CEO Eben Bayer ©Ecovative
Interviews

Ecovative: “Focused on Earth-Friendly Product Solutions for Two Major Industries: Plastics & Animal Agriculture”

Ecovative is developing revolutionary products across multiple categories spanning from bacon to shoes. The miracle material is mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms; a highly sustainable self-assembling microorganism that can provide solutions to packaging, food, and plastic products ranging from skincare sponges to leather.

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Ecovative

©Ecovative
Company News

Mycelium: The Miracle Mushroom That Can Replace Everything from Bacon to Shoes

Following the news in November last year that Ecovative Design had invested $10 million into researching the mycelium fungus, the biotech start-up has announced that it is already producing a wide variety of incredible products ranging from bacon, to plastic and leather alternative, to woodchip material, to shoes.

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Ecovative Design

©Ecovative Design
Company News

Ecovative Announces $10 Million in Capital for Launch of launch of Mycelium Foundry

Ecovative Design is a specialist in the research of the fungus mycelium in its “journey to bring self-assembling microorganisms to the consumer market.” The company uses the organism’s unique structure to grow fully formed materials for commercial use, and now announces an investment of $10 million in new capital for mycelium research.

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