Alternative seafood pioneer Plantish, which uses plant proteins to create premium, whole-cut fish, has raised $12.45 million in seed funding, the largest seed round to date in the burgeoning alternative seafood market.
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The round was led by State Of Mind Ventures, with participation from Pitango Health Tech, Unovis Capital, TechAviv Founder Partners, SmartAgro, E2JDJ, Alumni Ventures, and OurCrowd. The company had previously raised $2 million in pre-seed funding in June 2021, from TechAviv Founder Partners, a venture fund backed by top industry veterans, and angel investors including Chef José Andrés, and Nuseir Yassin from Nas Daily.
"Cracking whole cut seafood is the next big opportunity in our quest for impact and sustainability," said Merav Rotem Naaman, General Partner at State Of Mind Ventures. "When we met the world-class team at Plantish we knew that they had the passion, vision and capability to pull off the seemingly impossible task of producing a true upgrade to fish."
Founded in mid-2021, Plantish's mission is to save the oceans through production of plant-based, whole-cut fish fillets that are similar in taste, texture, and nutrition to conventional fish.
"We've already seen it happen in the meat market, now it's the time for fish and in particular salmon, which accounts for $50 billion in the half a trillion dollar seafood market. The problem has been that fish is so difficult to replicate until now," says Plantish co-founder and CEO Ofek Ron.
Plantish has developed a versatile, patent-pending additive manufacturing technology to produce plant-based fish alternatives. By deconstructing salmon to understand its different components, a team of experts is able to create plant-based connective tissue and muscle tissue, and uses this in their technology to create Plantish, one super-fine layer at a time.
Their first product is Plantish salmon, which the company says mimics cooked salmon in taste, texture, appearance, and structure, while also having the same nutritional values as its conventional counterpart. Plantish says its current prototype can be prepared and cooked in all the methods that conventional salmon is prepared.
The new funds will go towards building out the team and conducting further R&D to accelerate product development, with the goal being to get into foodservice first.
"We understand that over 60% of seafood is eaten outside the home, and salmon is among the most popular fish and animal protein in the world. Therefore we are focusing our efforts on the foodservice route and you can expect to see us in fine dining restaurants within the next two years," Ron said.
Plantish will be launching Plantish salmon in pop-up locations at the end of the year, and will be officially launching their product nation-wide in restaurants by 2024.
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