Earth VC’s founder Linh Nguyen and Orbillion CEO Patricia Bubner
Earth Venture Capital, a global climate tech VC firm based in Vietnam, has made a strategic investment in US-based cultivated meat startup Orbillion Bio.
This investment round was co-led by The Venture Collective and At One Ventures and joined by Y Combinator and Metaplanet. This brings its total funding raised to date to US$15 million.
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The investment will primarily fund the startup’s efforts to achieve pre-commercial scale and bring its first product to the market.
Livestock farming is estimated to contribute approximately 11.1-19.6 per cent of global GHG emissions. While plant-based proteins are popular, meat demand is still projected to rise due to income and population growth, particularly in low– and middle-income countries.
To sustainably feed the world and protect the planet, a new method of producing animal protein is needed, and cultivated meat could be the solution.
Founded in 2020 by Patricia Bubner, Gabriel Levesque-Tremblay, and Samet Yildirim, Orbillion specialises in producing Wagyu beef cells. It has developed an algorithm for scaling up cultivated meat, making commercialising low-cost cultivated beef possible.
Currently valued at US$78 billion in the US alone, this market presents significant opportunities for Orbillion’s growth and expansion.
Orbillion has partnered with Luiten Food, a European leader in premium meats, to bring cell-cultured Wagyu beef to over 35 countries pending EU regulatory approval. This partnership will leverage Luiten Food’s network of 1,200 distribution channels, paving the way for Orbillion’s premium product to reach the market.
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In September 2023, Orbillion conducted a 200-litre production run in Singapore.
Orbillion is moving towards achieving price parity with conventional beef, targeting an output of 4 million pounds of finished product annually. It achieves this by focusing on the scalability of its technology, which lies in an asset-light production system, optimised bioprocess, and developing a predictive algorithm for cultivated cells to enable rapid scale-up.
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Image Credit: Orbillion Bio.
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