Impossible Foods Raises $500 Million From Renowned VCs And Celebrities

By Amit Chowdhry ● Mar 17, 2020
  • Impossible Foods confirmed that it raised $500 million in funding led by new investor Mirae Asset Global Investments with participation from existing investors

Impossible Foods confirmed that it raised $500 million in funding led by new investor Mirae Asset Global Investments with participation from existing investors including Khosla Ventures, Horizons Ventures, and Temasek. Including this round of funding, Impossible Foods has raised a total of $1.3 billion since it was founded in 2011.

With this round of funding, Impossible Foods will invest in fundamental research and innovation along with accelerating its manufacturing scaleup. Plus the company will also expand its retail presence and its availability in key international markets along with accelerating the commercialization of next-generation products including Impossible Sausage Made From Plants and Impossible Pork Made From Plants.

The latest Series F equity funding round closed late last week. And along with the global institutional investors, Impossible Foods’ new and existing individual investors also include Jay Brown, Common, Kirk Cousins, Paul George, Peter Jackson, Jay-Z, Mindy Kaling, Trevor Noah, Alexis Ohanian, Kal Penn, Katy Perry, Questlove, Ruby Rose, Phil Rosenthal, Jaden Smith, Serena Williams, will.i.am, and Zedd.

Impossible Foods was founded by Dr. Patrick Brown, M.D., Ph.D. — who is a Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at Stanford University and a former Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. And some of the company’s other investors also include Bill Gates, Google Ventures, UBS, Viking Global Investors, Sailing Capital, and Open Philanthropy Project.

To deal with the COVID-19 outbreak, Impossible Foods has taken aggressive measures to prioritize the health and safety of its employees. This includes mandatory work-from-home policies for workers who can telecommute through the end of April. And the company also has stringent restrictions on external visitors to company facilities and those of co-manufacturing partners. Plus there has been a ban on virtually all work-related travel and events, both domestic and international. Impossible Foods’ workplaces are also sanitized, disinfected, and deep cleaned daily in order to ensure the strictest hygiene standards and utmost safety.

This new round of funding closely follows the launch of the company’s next-generation products: Impossible Sausage and Impossible Pork. These products debuted at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January 2020. And the demand for Impossible Foods’ flagship product Impossible Burger has been growing at a strong pace.

For example, Burger King continues to sell its Impossible Whopper at its more than 7,000 U.S. locations. And Burger King said that the menu item exceeded expectations and attracts new guests. And door-to-door delivery service DoorDash launched a dedicated Impossible Cuisine category in order to highlight merchants that offer Impossible menu items.

Impossible Burger experienced a tremendous surge in 2019. So the company more than quadrupled production at Impossible Foods’ manufacturing facility in Oakland, California and at multiple plants owned by co-manufacturing partners.

This month, Impossible Foods lowered its prices to US foodservice distributors by 15% on average in order to pass along savings achieved through economies of scale. The company has a goal of eliminating the need for animal agriculture by 2035.

Key Quotes:

“Our mission is to replace the world’s most destructive technology — the use of animals in food production — by 2035. To do that, we need to double production every year, on average, for 15 years and double down on research and innovation. The market has its ups and downs, but the global demand for food is always there, and the urgency of our mission only grows. Our investors not only believe in our mission, but they also recognize an extraordinary opportunity to invest in the platform that will transform the global food system.”

“Our No. 1 priority is the safety of our employees, customers and consumers. And we recognize our responsibility for the welfare of our community, including the entire San Francisco Bay Area, our global supplier and customer network, millions of our customers, and billions of people who are relying on food manufacturers to produce supplies in times of need.”

-Dr. Patrick O. Brown, M.D., Ph.D., founder and CEO of Impossible Foods.

“With this latest round of fundraising, Impossible Foods has the resources to accelerate growth — and continue to thrive in a volatile macroeconomic environment, including the current COVID-19 pandemic.”

-Impossible Foods’ Chief Financial Officer David Lee