Every month the team at e27 runs a monthly “startup of the month poll” where we pick the best startup to give it some extra coverage and attention that it deserves. Five startups are selected internally by taking into account idea, team, funding and founders. Three eventually make it to the final round, where we take in votes from our Telegram community.
The winner for January is none other than Singapore’s biotech startup TurtleTree which uses cell-based technology to create milk without requiring animals.
Reducing carbon footprint
At a time when climate change concern is drawing more and more attention –not just from the public but also the governments and businesses– Turtletree aims to make a difference by reducing carbon footprint from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the dairy sector.
Co-founded in 2019 by Fengru Lin, Rabail Toor and Max Rye, the startup claims to be the “world’s first cell-based milk company that utilises biotechnology to manufacture milk products without any animal needed.”
While the big question remains as to how an industry can balance between reducing its environmental impact and society’s demands for dairy products, the biotech startup aims to make a leap by replicating the full nutritional content of milk using cell-based technology.
The founders also said that they “have been able to replicate the exact full composition of dairy milk,” which erases the concerns of sticking to dairy products due to its high protein content.
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As demand for dairy grows, so does its impact on the environment. Even though dairy is not the number one factor for GHG emissions, it unarguably has a significant impact on the environment.
Not limited to simply milk and milk-based products, the company has targeted to apply their methods into recreating human breast milk, targeting to disrupt the infant milk formula industry that is currently valued at nearly US$45 billion.
The backers
The startup has already attracted global investors to forward its mission and vision which include KBW Ventures, owned by Saudi Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed.
Also joining the pre-seed funding round was US-Hong Kong venture capital fund which specialised in protein investments Lever VC, and Silicon Valley-based K2 Global. The amount of investment for this round is undisclosed.
“This is long-term investment; we’re not in this for the quick win,” HRH Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud told Entrepreneur, expressing that “investing in the development of alternative protein sources that use less natural resources by biotech startups is one way to play a role in solving what is truly the most pressing issue of our times: the climate crisis.”
Nick Cooney, founder and managing partner at Lever VC also commented on the startup saying that the technology could be a “serious disrupter in the global dairy industry,”.
“They are the first company in the world producing real, whole milk from cell cultivation — which opens the door for safer, healthier and customised dairy products that can be produced with far fewer natural resources,” he continued.
The fresh capital will be used by the company to make more hires and create additional fresh prototypes.
As it plans to debut its product in Spring this year, whether the company will radically change how milk is recreated, only time will tell.
The runner-up
In addition to TurtleTree, the e27 community also voted for Lumitics and Gredu as the runner-up for the Startup of the Month title.
Lumitics is a company that tracks the food wasted by Singapore’s F&B outlets and restaurants and Gredu is an edutech startup that enables parents to track their children’s progress.
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Image Credit: Waldemar Brandt
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