Germany: Lab-grown cheese company secures record $50m in Series A

Berlin-based Formo set to supercharge R&D as it moves into new headquarters post-fundraising

Alt-protein cheese maker Formo has secured $50 million in a Series A funding round to help it towards its target of replacing 10% of Europe’s dairy products with precision-fermentation alternatives by 2030.

The round was led by multi-stage VC fund EQT Ventures while Agronomics, the cultivated agriculture investment vehicle led by Jim Mellon, was also among the investors contributing to what Formo claims to be “the largest ever European Series A foodtech deal”.

The Berlin-based business will use the capital to move into a larger headquarters, accelerate its research and scale its lab-grown cheese business.

“We are taking the dairy parlour of the future microscopic and then back up to a size that can get in the ring with industrial dairy, gloves off,” Formo founder Raffael Wohlgensinger said of the new capital in a blog post on the company’s Medium page.

“While it’s tempting to consider this truckload of fresh cash as a win in itself, it’s more important to reflect on what this money fundamentally represents: it’s trust in our rockstar team and the values we cherish, it’s recognition of our technological pacesetting, and fundamentally, belief that people everywhere are ready to make decisions every day that take us towards a better, more sustainable planet,” Wohlgensinger added.

In July, Formo CFO Roman Plewka told NutritionInvestor the company was seeking to raise north of €30 million ($35 million) in its Series A.

Lewka said Forma had seen interest from both existing and new investors. At the time the company was actively recruiting new talent to its diverse team.

“We have team members from the US and from across Europe, be it Spain or the UK, while we are also talking to people in Australia and other countries,” Plewka said.

Plewka said the company was eyeing launches in Singapore, the US, the UK and Israel.