Bluu seafooda German company that makes cultured (i.e., “lab-raised”) Seafood products announced today that it has raised €16 million ($17.5 million) in a Series A funding round.
Bluu Seafood, originally founded in Berlin in 2020 as Bluu Biosciences, starts with a “one-off” fish biopsy — which, it says, doesn’t require killing any fish — then uses stem cell technology to grow whole cell lines (i.e. fish species) in a laboratory.
The company unveiled its first products last August, including a line of fish fingers (or “fish sticks”) and fish balls. These are made from cultured fish cells enriched with vegetable protein, a process they say helps make their mouthfeel and cooking process more realistic.
Cultured fish balls from Bluu Seafood Image credits: Bluu Seafood
Production problems
Bluu Seafood is one of many biotech startups committed to tackling global seafood production problems, including overfishing, contamination and cruelty. But the movement isn’t limited to marine animals, with countless companies raising buckets of VC money to reproduce everything from bacon to burgers and chicken and beyond.
For its part, Bluu Seafood had raised €7.1 million in funding so far, and with a further €16 million in the bank, it is now gearing up to receive regulatory approval in several markets, including Singapore, which is currently the only market in the world is where cultured meat (chicken) is for sale. However, the Food and Drug Association (FDA) has also begun labeling such edibles as safe for human consumption, and just this week it approved two companies to begin selling their lab-grown chicken products — so we can see some commercial activity in the US in the very near future.
First, Bluu Seafood wants to enter Singapore, where it says it expects approval sometime in 2024, while saying it has also started the approval process with the FDA and will then start targeting the European market.
Bluu Seafood’s Series A round was led by Sonsubsidiary Sparkfood and LBBW VCwith the participation of Delivery hero, SeaX Ventures, Manta Ray Ventures, Norrsken VC, Hamburgische Investments- und Förderbank And Dr. Oetker.
