Management

Food-tech firm Plantible raises $21.5 million in series A funding

Sept. 7, 2021

Source Plantible Foods Inc.

The San Diego food-tech/biotech company is raising funds to expand the production of lemna, aka duckweed, the most protein-efficient plant in the world. Pictured here is the Plantible Food team.

Food-tech company Plantible Foods Inc. announced the closing of a $21.5 million series A funding round led by Astanor Ventures, an "agrifood" impact investing. With this new funding, Plantible has raised a total of $27 million.

Other investors include Eighteen94 Capital, Unshackled Ventures and Vectr Ventures, along with FTW Ventures, GoodFriends, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Piva Ventures and CJ CheilJedang

Plantible was founded in 2018 by Tony Martens and Maurits van de Ven with the goal of reshaping the world's food supply chain. Plantible has developed a vertically integrated agricultural platform to produce Rubi Protein from lemna, a type of aquatic plant, commonly known as duckweed.

The natural, plant-based protein emulates the functional characteristics of widely used animal-based proteins and enables food companies to match the taste and texture of animal-based products with more sustainable plant-based ingredients.

Plantible said it plans to use the funding to build its first commercial facility by 2022.