Innocent Meat Secures €6 Million Fundraising Round To Scale Its Cultivated Protein

Innocent Meat has raised €6 million in its most recent fundraising round to help develop and scale its cultivated protein system.

The German biotech company has allocated the funding to a demonstration facility and regulatory preparation ahead of entering the market in 2028.

CEO Laura Gertenback co-founded Innocent Meat nearly eight years ago in Papendorf, Germany, alongside CTO Patrick Inomoto. According to the company’s website, its primary goal is to “break the reliance on animal agriculture” with an entirely automated “plug-and-produce” cultured meat production system.

The recent €6 million (roughly USD $6.6 million) fundraising round included new backing from GENIUS Venture Capital, Innocent Meat’s home state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and the EU’s European Regional Development Fund.

‘Our first demonstration facility’

“We are pleased with the trust and strategic foresight shown by our investors,” Gertenbach said. “With this financing and additional public funding, we will be able to build our first demonstration facility for potential customers, develop scalable production infrastructure for our growth factors, and secure regulatory approvals in our initial target markets. We are planning market entry in 2028.”

As reported by Protein Production Technology, Uwe Bräuer, the managing director of GENIUS Venture Capital, said that the firm had supported Innocent Meat since the biotech company’s early days through capital as well as operational advice and input.

“We supported Innocent Meat early on with capital and know-how,” Bräuer said. “The growing interest from investors and meat processing companies in new technologies is encouraging and confirms our original investment decision.”

Cultivated protein, pork, and the climate crisis

Photo shows Innocent Meat's "farm in a box" mock-up, which illustrates its "plug-and-play" cultivated meat production system — Innocent Meat Innocent Meat has said that its system can achieve significant output with minimal space and natural resources

Innocent Meat uses AI to help streamline its systems and has said that a bioreactor equipped with AI can produce approximately one tonne of cultivated pork per week in a space no larger than six square meters, roughly two-fifths of a parking space.

Pigs reared for pork typically weigh 60g when slaughtered, so each tonne of cultivated protein saves nearly 17 pigs’ lives, and requires less land, water, and feed.

While raising cows for beef and dairy has the biggest overall negative impact on the environment, pig farming creates an enormous amount of waste, which pollutes the air, land, and water, and emits planet-warming methane, ammonia, and N₂O.