Agriculture Environment

INTEGRICULTURE Raises 7 Million USD to build a Sustainable and Universally Accessible Cellular Agriculture Infrastructure

IntegriCulture Inc.(hereinafter referred to as “IntegriCulture”) with a species-agnostic, large-scale cell culture technology CulNet System™  has made one step closer to building a universally accessible cellular agriculture platform by raising a total of 7 million USD from 12 investors in the Series A’ round. The proprietary CulNet System is capable of inexpensively culturing animal cells of all types and species without exogenous growth factors. This brings the total amount of funds raised to approximately 16.4 Million USD. With the funds raised, IntegriCulture Inc. plans to build a cellular agriculture infrastructure platform to be used by institutions of all sizes and sectors. The company also aims for the world’s first commercial launch of cell-cultured foie gras in 2022.

*note: 100JPY=0.0086USD

Series A’ Investor partners

Real Tech Fund

Future Food Fund No.1 Investment Limited Liability Partnership (New)

Beyond Next Ventures

Shoku-no-Mirai-Fund (kemuri ventures) (New)

Resona Capital 6 Investment Partnership (New)

Plan・Do・See Inc. (New)

Yamaguchi Capital Corporation (New)

SuMi TRUST Innovation Fund (New)* 

Iyogin Capital (New)

AgFunder

VU Venture Partners

…and 1 other company

* A private fund jointly established by Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Limited (President and CEO Kazuya Oyama) and SBI Investment Co., Ltd. (President and CEO Katsuya Kawashima).

Message from CEO Yuki Hanyu

We will continue to develop technologies to achieve our mission, “Utilize biological resources with technology to create a healthy social infrastructure,” and finally make cultured meat a reality in 2022. I am excited to see a world where new food cultures are born.

Messages from New Partners

Kohei Matsumoto, Representative Director, Future Food Fund Inc.

“There are many venture companies involved in the field of cultured meat, but IntegriCulture’s technology is very unique in the world…I am convinced that the ideas, technology, energy, and passion of the company’s management team will make a significant contribution to solving the future protein crisis brought about by global population growth and environmental issues, and I look forward to the company’s success in this field beyond Japan…” 

Hiroki Okada, Representative Partner, kemuri ventures, Shoku-no-Mirai-Fund

“…IntegriCulture is a world leader in cultured meat research, and we are convinced that their CulNet System will lead to a major step toward mass production of cultured meat (reduction of production costs)…” 

Hidekatsu Kikuchi, President and Representative Director, Resona Capital

We believe that the “CulNet System” of the cell culture platform business is a promising technology with the potential to create new developments in various fields. The cultured meat business is highly competitive as a sustainable food production system, and we feel that it is of great significance in that it can lead to solutions to social and environmental problems from a global perspective…”

Toshiya Shimobeppu, Senior Managing Executive Officer, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank

“…IntegriCulture has an innovative idea of “recreating the human body system” in meat culturing, and possesses technology that can compress the cost of growth factors, which has been a problem in the industry, and is expected to become a leading platform in the cultured meat industry. With this investment as a starting point, we would like to contribute to the decarbonization of the industry by supporting IntegriCulture’s business as a financial institution through business matching with domestic and overseas customers and providing future financing.”

Ryota Yamaguchi, Manager, Yamaguchi Capital

“…We are convinced that the CulNet System developed by IntegriCulture is a platform technology that can break through these barriers, and we share IntegriCulture’s will to realize a sustainable world, which led us to invest in the company…” 

 Mitsunori Takase, Manager, Iyogin Capital

The company’s proprietary CulNet System is a cell culture technology that is directly linked to solving problems such as future protein shortages and the environmental impact of livestock farming, and I was attracted to invest in the company because of its high technological capabilities and coexistence-oriented management policy of providing this technology widely as a platform…” 

Michael Dean, Founding Partner, Agfunder

“The technical development Integriculture has achieved over the past 18 months has been impressive, and we truly believe that their CulNet System will be an industry defining technology and will drive the future of sustainable, high quality protein production.”  

J. Skyler Fernandes, Co-Founder & General Partner, VU Venture Partners

IntegriCulture’s technology makes the production of cultured meat affordable at scale, and will rapidly increase the commercialization for the next generation of meat brands.” 

Company Profile

Company name: IntegriCulture Inc.

CEO: Yuki Hanyu

Founded In: October 23, 2015

Registered Head Office: F7,4-1-3, Hongo,Bunkyo-ku,Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

Shinjuku Office: No.101,TWIns 3F,8-1,Kawada-cho,Shinjuku-ku,Tokyo, 162-8666, Japan

Shonan Office: BW1M-2130, 26-1, Muraoka-Higashi 2-chome. Fujisawa, Kanagawa, 251-8555, Japan

Website: https://integriculture.com/en/

Business Domain: Research and development of animal-based cell cultured ingredients, cosmetics and foods using the general-purpose commercial-scale cell culture production system, CulNet System.