Macronutrients don’t have popularity contests. But if they did, protein would surely be this era’s winner.
For everything from sodas to snack bars to pasta, it’s now standard practice for food and drink makers to play up protein content whenever feasible. While we may cut carbs and fret over fat, most of us are still keen on protein.
Startups and their backers have been riding this trend too. Over the past decade, investors have poured billions into upstarts promising cheaper, tastier and more sustainable ways to meet our protein quotas.
Unfortunately, many of their earlier bets have fared poorly. Vast sums poured into lab-grown meat several years ago, for instance, have so far failed to produce a success story. Former high-flying plant-based meat startups Beyond (now public) and Impossible Foods have seen their valuations wither. Others have shuttered.
In response, more recent startup investment has shifted away from meat substitutes and toward stuffing more protein into other packaged foods and drinks. It’s a fad that’s obvious on supermarket shelves, where startups and established brands alike relentlessly tout the added protein in their noodles, pancakes, cereals, energy bars, popcorn and so on.
Deal flow looks robust
In startup circles, protein-related investment looks tiny in comparison to the billions bet on AI. Deal flow, however, remains fairly robust, with Crunchbase identifying a few dozen protein-focused startups funded in the past year. Moreover, some of these rounds are quite sizable, like a $250 million September Series B for Medici Brands, maker of David Protein snack bars.
To illustrate, we used Crunchbase data to put together sample sets of recently-funded protein-focused companies across several themes. These include packaged foods, drinks, ingredients and processes, and animal feed.
Protein snacks and packaged foods
Snacks and packaged foods look like the largest fundraisers among protein startups, securing hundreds of millions in the past year.
For a sense of who’s raising, we put together a list of seven recently funded brands that are finding their way to store shelves.
The bulk of recent funding went to the aforementioned parent of David Protein. That brand, in addition to churning sweet-flavored bars with a protein content to rival cod, has been expanding into ice cream and milkshakes.
Wilde Brands, which makes crackers from chicken breasts, has also proven popular with investors, pulling in $40 million last month. Among early-stage startups, meanwhile, Frozen One has been off to a brisk start, raising over $8 million for a line of high-protein ice creams now selling at Target.
Protein drinks
Startups and investors are also catering to people who want their high-protein diet in drinkable form. To illustrate, we put together six recently funded examples below.
Ripple Foods, which makes a vegan milk using pea protein, is the highest historical funding recipient, raising over $300 million in its 12-year-history, even though it hasn’t officially joined the unicorn club.
Clear protein drinks are also increasingly a thing, with multiple startups including protein soda brand Juuz and sports drink purveyor Protein2o.
Precision fermentation and plant protein ingredients
Quite a few funded startups are focused more on novel, protein-rich ingredients rather than their own branded retail lineup. In many cases, they’re using precision fermentation to deliver.
We put together seven examples below.
The Every Co., which makes animal-free egg white proteins through fermentation, is the biggest funding recipient and one of the older names on our list. It’s raised nearly $300 million in the past 10 years, including a $55 million round a year ago.
Early stage is also seeing some action from startups including Edonia, which makes a high-protein cooking ingredient from spirulina,
Animal feed and pet food
A number of funded protein startups are also focusing on pets and livestock — a target audience that’s not quite so overwhelmed by supermarket options.
To illustrate, we aggregated five such companies that raised funding in recent quarters.
Notably, two of them — InnovaFeed and nextProtein — are bug-focused. InnovaFeed has raised over $500 million to raise insects for feeding livestock, pet food and aquaculture. NextProtein is using fly larvae for feedstock.
Others are focused on pets. Meatly, for instance, secured a Series A round this spring to build what it says will be Europe’s largest cultivated meat facility. It plans to partner with pet food brands and sell its own branded lineup once production scales.
Broad focus: Protein, not meat
If we were to encapsulate a broad trend across most of the protein-related financings it would be that startups aren’t trying to convince people that vegetables are meat. Rather, they’re focused largely on protein as an in-demand macronutrient that can be increasingly concentrated and stuffed into a bewildering variety of flavors and form factors.
That might not all taste as good as their more sugary, high-fat and carb-laden alternatives, but at least they’ve got protein.
Related Crunchbase lists:
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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