Impossible Foods, a company that is developing a new generation of meat and cheese made entirely from plants, announced it raised $300 million in Series E led by existing investors Temasek and Horizons Ventures. Founded in 2011 by Stanford biochemistry professor and former pediatrician Dr. Patrick Brown, Impossible Foods plans to use this funding round to accelerate its scale up by hiring more talent and increasing capacity expansion at its plant in Oakland, California.
Along with the aforementioned investors, a group of famous celebrities also joined this round including Jay Brown, Kirk Cousins, Paul George, Jay-Z, Trevor Noah, Alexis Ohanian, Kal Penn, Katy Perry, Questlove, Ruby Rose, Phil Rosenthal, Jaden Smith, Serena Williams, will.i.am, and Zedd. Including this funding round, Impossible Foods has raised over $750 million.
“We have cracked the molecular code for meat and built an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio and brand,” said Impossible Foods Chief Financial Officer David Lee. “Our global financial partners are supporting a technology powerhouse that will transform the global food system.”
Impossible Foods’ flagship product known as the plant-based Impossible Burger — which debuted at some of America’s best restaurants in 2016. Earlier this year, Impossible Foods launched the “shockingly good” Impossible Burger 2.0 product at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January 2019.
Ever since January, Impossible Foods saw rapid growth in every sales category where it does business including independent restaurants, large restaurant chains such as White Castle and Qdoba, and non-commercial outlets like theme parks, museums, stadiums, and college campuses. Now the Impossible Burger is sold at over 7,000 restaurants on two continents. Last month, America’s “better burger” franchise Red Robin launched the Impossible Burger in nearly 500 restaurants nationwide. And Burger King — which is the world’s second-largest burger chain — debuted the Impossible Whopper in a regional test in April followed by a decision to bring it to all 7,200 U.S. restaurants at the end of 2019.
Chefs around the world are also expanding the number of items they made with the plant-based meat and the average per-store volume is increasing. Since Impossible Foods launched in Singapore in March 2019, sales in Asia increased more than three-fold. And Impossible is sold in a wide range of restaurants and cuisines throughout Hong Kong, Singapore, and Macau. Plus Impossible Foods is planning to launch the Impossible Burger in retail outlets later this year.
Impossible Foods uses modern science and technology for creating wholesome food and restoring natural ecosystems. The meat made from plants uses a much smaller environmental footprint than meat from animals. And it can feed a growing population sustainably.
Since demand is outstripping supply, Impossible Foods is going to hire at least 50 new employees for the Oakland plant on top of the 70 full-time workers already based there. Plus the company is going to add a third shift and a second full-line of production in order to help increase its capacity this year.
Recently, Impossible Foods hired Sheetal Shah as SVP of Product and Operations in order to oversee numerous functions like manufacturing, supply chain, and logistics. Shah used to be the Chief Operations Officer at Verifone. And before that, he was the Chief Procurement Officer at Motorola Mobility.
Impossible Foods is aiming to eliminate the need for animals in the food chain by 2035. Some of Impossible Foods’ previous investors include Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, Google Ventures, Horizons Ventures, UBS, Viking Global Investors, Temasek, Sailing Capital, and Open Philanthropy Project.
