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Lever VC was founded in 2018 by Nick Cooney, an early investor of Beyond Meat and Memphis Meats. He is also the co-founder of Good Food Institute. Lever has currently invested in 14 startups from the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America.Focused on investments in early-stage alternative protein companies, the firm announced the first close of its Lever VC Fund I in August 2020, with its fourth close at $46m in April 2021. The final close will be completed by June 2021. Investors in the fund include NFL and NBA athletes, British nobility, food businesses, alt-protein companies and family offices as limited partners.In June 2020, Lever launched a $28m joint investment fund and accelerator to invest in Chinese plant-based and cell-cultivated meat and dairy companies. The Lever China Alternative Protein Fund will invest RMB 40m in alt-protein companies in mainland China over the next four years.

Founded by pioneering tech investor Ozi Amanat in 2015, K2 Global is a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley and Singapore. Amanat, who moved to Singapore in 2012, is one of Twitter’s early backers, raising $25m to invest in the social media startup that later went public in 2013. The Harvard graduate in psychology and economics also invested in Uber, Spotify and Alibaba during his career as a venture capitalist. Amanat is the chief investment officer of K2 VC, K2 Global and Singapore-based Spice Global controlled by Indian billionaire B K Modi.In 2017, K2 also announced a $183m VC fund focusing on early-stage startups that aim to address global challenges. The majority of K2 limited partners are based outside the US in countries like Australia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia.

Green Monday Ventures is the impact investment arm of Green Monday Group founded by longtime Buddhist David Yeung to produce plant-based meat and operate Hong Kong’s first plant-based concept store.Founded in 2012, the Green Monday movement is a social enterprise aimed at promoting sustainable lifestyle concepts like "green food" to address challenges relating to public health, climate change, food security and animal wellbeing. The Hong Kong-based VC was set up in 2013 to focus on investments in alternative protein companies worldwide.

Based in London, CPT Capital is the venture arm of private equity pioneer Jeremy Coller's private family office. Coller is the founder of Europe’s first private equity for secondaries in 1990. The British philanthropist has also established several business schools and the Jeremy Coller Foundation that aims to eliminate factory farming. In 2017, CPT Capital was founded to disrupt the food industry with investments in the alt-protein sector to create the “future of food and materials” like plant-based, recombinant and cell-cultured proteins.

Founded in Sydney in 2004, Artesian Capital Management (Australia) Pty Ltd is a global alternative investment management firm specialized in public and private debt, venture capital and impact investment strategies. The VC was a spin-off from ANZ Banking Group’s capital markets business, backed by ANZ Private Equity. Artesian’s founding partners Jeremy Colless, Matthew Clunies-Ross and John McCartney bought ANZ’s stake in 2005.Today, Artesian has international offices in New York, London, Singapore, Jakarta and Shanghai. Its China VC Fund was launched in 2017 and the firm also has plans for a Southeast Asia VC Fund. The alternative investment firm currently manages multiple funds including Australian VC Fund 2, High Impact Green Debt Fund, GrainInnovate and Women Economic Empowerment Fund.

Founded in September 2019 by Patrick Morris, Eat Beyond went public on the Canadian Securities Exchange in November 2020. The company’s shares are also traded on the Frankfurt Exchange in Germany and OTC Markets in the US. Morris had worked in capital markets for over 15 years and wanted to find a solution to help retail investors access the emerging markets of alt-proteins and other future food sectors.First of its kind in Canada, the Eat Beyond Global Investment Fund focuses on four key areas: meat, seafood, eggs, and dairy. It also participates in cell agriculture and other experimental projects. Current investments include foodtechs and alt-food source companies working on plant-based proteins, fermented proteins, cultured proteins, agriculture and consumer packaged goods.

DSM Venturing is the investment arm of major Dutch biotech company DSM that has been investing in startups since 2006. The company currently has 36 startups in its portfolio across geographies and has managed three exits to date. It typically invests between €100,000 and €5m, with a lifetime investment varying from €1m–20m and usually requires board membership alongside investment. It has offices in the Netherlands and the US, both on the east and west coast. Its recent investments include in the March 2021 $48m Series A round of Dutch cell-based meat startup Meatable which leverages pluripotent stem cells for the first time in foodtech, and in the same month, in the $8m Series A round of British anti-pollution biotech Deep Branch Biotechnology.

New York-based Humboldt Fund invests in startups with the potential to solve critical issues of our time across the areas of food production, healthcare, energy, and construction and manufacturing materials. It currently has 14 companies in its portfolio.  Its most recent investments include in the March 2021 $48m Series A round of Dutch cell-based meat startup Meatable which leverages pluripotent stem cells for the first time in foodtech, and in the February 2021 $16m seed round of US biotech Cellino Biotech. 

Rick Klausner is an award-winning scientist, former executive director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and an entrepreneur. Cell and molecular biologist Klausner was also director of the US National Cancer Institute from 1999-2001 and currently serves as CEO at biotech Lyell Immunopharma working with cell-based technology. He has also co-founded three US healthcare startups to date, Juno Therapeutics in 2013, MindStrong Health in 2014 and GRAIL in 2015. In 2021, he participated as an investor in the $48m Series A round of Dutch cell-based meat startup Meatable which leverages pluripotent stem cells for the first time in foodtech.

Founded in Silicon Valley by serial investor and founder of Google Ventures Bill Marris, Section 32 has multiple investment interests with medicine and biotech key amongst them.  Marris himself has invested in over 500 companies, with over one-third resulting in IPO or M&A. Fifty of his portfolio companies have exceeded $1bn valuations, including Uber.  Section 32 currently has 48 companies in its portfolio. Its most recent investments have included in Canadian remote medicine platform Cover Health’s $43m Series B round and in the $100m Series B round of US cancer detection software C2i Genomics, both in April 2021. In March 2021, it participated in the $48m Series A round of Dutch cell-based meat startup Meatable which leverages pluripotent stem cells for the first time in foodtech.

Jeffrey Leiden is a physician and scientist of more than 40 years, who is currently the executive chairman of US-based multinational biotech company Vertex Pharmaceuticals.  Leiden is also the chairman of Casana, a remote healthcare platform and the chairman of Tmunity, a biotech dedicated to T-cell research. In March 2021, he participated as an angel investor in the $48m Series A round of Dutch cell-based meat startup Meatable which leverages pluripotent stem cells for the first time in foodtech. 

Founded in 2016, Berlin-based investor BlueYard invests in startups aiming to tackle the planet’s greatest challenges. It typically makes $1m–3m as an initial investment and has no geographical bias. Its most recent investments include in the March 2021 $48m Series A round of Dutch cell-based meat startup Meatable which leverages pluripotent stem cells for the first time in foodtech and in the February 2021 $4m seed round of Next Matter, a German Open Source automation tool for operations teams.

Founded in 2011, London-based Agronomics Limited’s principal investing interest is in environmentally-friendly alternatives to the traditional production of meat, wherever they may be located. There are currently 17 companies in its portfolio, all of them in the cellular-based or plant-based protein category and sustainable food production.Its most recent declared investments have been in the March 2021 $48m Series A round of Dutch cell-based meat startup Meatable which leverages pluripotent stem cells for the first time in foodtech, and in the December 2020 undisclosed pre-seed round of Chinese cellular foodtech CellX.

BACKED VC is primarily a seed-stage funder based in London and founded in 2015 that selects its investments based on the founding team rather than on market-based decisions. It typically invests from €0.5m to €2.5m per round and, to date, has invested in 45 startups with two exits so far. Its most recent investments include in the March 2021 £5m Series A round of British legal digitization platform Legl and in the February 2021 £2.7m seed round of UK-based cellular fat producer Hoxton Farms. 

Founded in 2016, Paris-based Future Positive Capital invests in European startups in deep tech and biotechnology to solve major problems, with funding for only 20 portfolio startups.  It has backed eight startups to date with its most recent investments being in the April 2021 undisclosed €5.2m funding round of French renewable energytech SWEETCH Energy and in the £7.9m Series A round of British ecosystem restoration technology Dendra Systems in September 2020. 

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