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Israeli food tech startup Remilk raises $120m investment for cow-free milk

January 4, 2022 from The TimesOfIsrael:

"Prof. Amnon Lahad calls prospect of virus crossing species ‘very concerning,’ as Health Ministry advises Israelis to avoid sick birds and not to buy unregulated chicken, eggs.

"Israeli food tech startup Remilk, a developer of animal-free milk and dairy, raised $120 million in a funding round led by Hanaco Ventures, a New York- and Tel Aviv-based venture capital fund.

"The Remilk investment revealed Tuesday was the single largest in a cow-free dairy company to date, and values the startup at an astonishing $500 million, according to sources familiar with the deal. Financial daily The Marker reported a valuation of $325 million.

"Remilk, founded in 2019, produces milk proteins via a fermentation process that renders them “chemically identical” to those present in cow-produced milk and dairy products.

"The two entrepreneurs mapped out the chemical composition of milk, assessed the fat, lactose and sugar in the liquid, and determined that the key ingredient to making milk is the proteins.

"Remilk recreates the milk proteins by taking the genes that encode them and inserting them into a single-cell microbe, which they manipulated genetically to express the protein'“in an efficient and scalable way,' said Wolf. The product is then dried into a powder.

"The dried powder can be sold to dairy companies, and food manufacturers can add water and fat to create a range of cheeses, yogurts, and ice creams. Remilk can also offer ready-made products like hard cheese, yogurt, and cream cheese.

"Another Israeli cow-free dairy startup, Imagindairy, raised $13 million in seed funding in November. Imagindairy says its technology recreates nature-identical, animal-free versions of whey and casein proteins that can be used to produce dairy duplicates.

"Meanwhile, Israeli cultured dairy company BioMilk went public on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange last April. BioMilk isolates the milk-producing cells from cows’ udders and transfers them to a bioreactor, where they are exposed to materials patented by the firm to produce milk, but without needing a cow in the final milk-producing process."