Would you eat lab-grown meat? Would you give the same answer if someone asked you to use a beauty product that had lab-grown collagen as an ingredient?
Cellular agriculture — the process of growing an agriculture product from cell cultures — has been gaining momentum over the past few years. Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Upside Foods’ and Good Meat’s plan to sell their lab-grown chicken through restaurants. Both companies, in addition to numerous other cellular agriculture startups, have raised oodles of venture dollars.
The rise of cellular agriculture hasn’t been linear and easygoing, of course, and not everyone is into the craze. Italy, for one, is working to ban the stuff outright, and various polls have produced mixed results regarding whether folks would actually eat lab-grown meat.
But not everyone is using the tech to create yet another meat alternative.
Stephanie Michelsen first realized the potential of cellular agriculture when she was working in the alternative protein sector. When she started thinking about it further, she realized there may be an overlooked opportunity: Animal proteins like gelatin and collagen have use cases well beyond the realm of food.
“I started thinking about the hurdles for moving into an animal-free future. If all animal culture disappeared tomorrow, what would be missing? What do we not have a solution for?” Michelsen said. “For me, it was the byproducts that are only found in these animals. That is how I landed on collagen.”
Cultivated collagen is the basis for her startup Jellatech, which was founded in 2020 and recently landed a $3.5 million seed round led by byFounders VC, with participation from Milano Investment Partners and Joyful VC, among others.
Jellatech stands out in the increasingly crowded cellular agriculture space because it is tapping into a larger opportunity than some of its seafood and meat-focused counterparts.
There is going to be a sizable market for lab-grown meat and seafood, but we should also acknowledge that the market will absolutely have a limit. Not everyone is going to want to eat lab-grown meat, and the alternative protein space is struggling already — at least on the public markets. There are only so many distribution channels for meat — restaurants, stores, direct to consumers — and it seems unlikely that Italy will be the only country that’s not on board with the concept.
Jellatech is designed to overcome a lot of those challenges.
There are many more use cases and potential revenue streams for lab-grown gelatin or collagen than there are for meat. Besides being used in food products, these proteins can also be used in industries like personal care and beauty, biomedicine and materials. And all of those sectors have different regulations and cater to a wide variety of customers and businesses who may be okay with some ingredients being grown in a lab.
“We are not confined to this one application or industry,” Michelsen said. “We realized early on we were getting interest and inquiries from the biomedical space [saying they loved what we were doing].”
Michelsen added that this approach has also allowed the company to better think about commercialization and scale. While launching into a market like beauty might require a larger team and facility than it can muster now, Jellatech can start with smaller, cost-effective use cases that will let it start generating revenue.
Michelsen said the company has proven its ability to create both bovine and human collagen and is now looking for ways to commercialize and scale.
“How do we make more of it cheaper, more efficient, quicker?” she said of the challenges the startup is tackling at this point. “We are at a really good point, a bunch of different species. Now we want to expand and build this protein portfolio and really focus on proteins that are uniquely found in animals and humans.”
Sometimes, new tech gets pigeonholed to the first idea that catches the attention of venture investors, so it’s nice to see a startup like Jellatech go against the grain.
“We are extremely lucky doing what we do,” Michelsen said. “There are so many industries we can go into, and we can be pretty agile. We aren’t limited to region or application, which has been a real blessing for us.”