TurtleTree, a company that makes cell-based milk, has secured $30 million in its Series A fundraising round from a group of investors led by current investors and Finnish growth-stage VC firm Verso Capital.
TurtleTree will utilise the fresh money to grow its line of sustainable, better-for-you food items, having only opened its Sacramento R&D center in September.
It will also set aside funding for technological development and talent acquisition, allowing the company to expand its world-class research and development staff.
These projects will work together to assist TurtleTree to scale up its research and manufacturing of highly useful chemicals found in human milk, which have been shown to boost immune system function, gastrointestinal health, and cognitive development. Lactoferrin, a bioactive protein that will be TurtleTree’s first commercial product, is an example of one of these components.
This will eventually offer scalable solutions to the cell-based food sector, guaranteeing that everyone in the world has access to the nutritious ingredients of mammalian milk in a way that is both sustainable and inexpensive.
“The funding received has truly opened up a new world of possibility. We can now set our sights on turning ambitions into reality. We will start with our US-based expansion plans and then move on to the development and manufacture of our first consumer-ready products,” TurtleTree’s chief strategy officer Max Rye said.
TurtleTree, which was founded in 2019, employs its patented method to create complete milk from mammary cells in hygienic production facilities. The firm plans to grow into a worldwide biotechnology platform with the goal of revolutionizing performance nutrition, food systems, and cellular agriculture in the future.
TurtleTree has raised nearly $40 million so far.
TurtleTree raised $6.2 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series A investment from Green Monday Ventures, Eat Beyond Global, KBW Ventures, and Verso in December 2020. It obtained a pre-seed fundraising round a few months ago from KBW Ventures, Lever VC, and K2 Global, among others.
