Tyson Foods invests in ‘clean’ meat startup, Memphis Meats

Alternative or ''clean'' meat startup Memphis Meats yesterday announced an investment from Tyson Foods, one of the world's biggest meat producers.

The investment from Tyson, which produces about one in five pounds of chicken, beef, and pork in the US, comes from its venture capital arm. Tyson Foods joins the likes of Cargill, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Atomico, and DFJ.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but according to Memphis, the funding will go toward research and development and expansion of the Memphis team.

Memphis Meats co-founder and CEO Uma Valeti told Fortune that he had intentionally sought investments from different parts of the food and financial ecosystem. ''We want to continue building alliances and being inclusive,'' he said. ''Taking a divisive approach in this is not going to be helpful for us as well as everyone else.''

Valeti said, the investments from Tyson and Cargill, will benefit the company from their deep knowledge of meat distribution. ''They really understand how to scale up,'' he says. ''They'll help us learn a lot about getting meat on the shelf.''

Tom Hayes, Tyson CEO said in a post on the company's site that the investment ''might seem counterintuitive,'' including ''to some inside our company.''

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. San Francisco-based Memphis Meats unveiled a meatball grown in a lab in 2016, but has not yet commercialised a product. A big hurdle is the sheer cost of producing the meat which currently stands at around $2,400 to produce a single pound of the meat, which is often called ''cultured'' or ''clean.''

However, a giant like Tyson, which sells about $30 billion a year in  beef, poultry and pork, can help advise Memphis Meats on scaling up. ''We want to work with them to scale. Cost is the main focus for us,'' Memphis Meats CEO and cofounder Uma Valeti told Forbes. ''At the end point, it will be significantly cheaper than conventional meat.''

In August 2017, Mempghis received Series A funding, with investments from received investment from Cargill , Bill Gates, Richard Branson and also European venture capital fund Atomico, New Crop Capital, SOSV, Fifty Years, KBW Ventures, Inevitable Ventures, Suzy Welch, Kyle Vogt, and Kimbal Musk.

In August 2017, Memphis received Series A funding with investment from Cargill , Bill Gates, Richard Branson and also European venture capital fund Atomico, New Crop Capital, SOSV, Fifty Years, KBW Ventures, Inevitable Ventures, TV commentator and writer Suzy Welch, robotics pioneer Kyle Vogt, and entrepreneur, philanthropist, and restaurateu Kimbal Musk (See: Lab-grown meat startup Memphis Meats completes $17-mn Series A fundraising).