Meatly, Europe’s first company to sell cultivated meat, has raised £10.4 million in Series A funding to build Europe’s largest cultivated meat production facility. The round was led by three European VC funds — Oyster Bay Venture Capital, Clean Growth Fund and JamJar Investments — joining existing investors Agronomics and Pets at Home. The latest raise brings Meatly’s total funding to date to £17.4 million, building on £7 million in seed funding from founding investor Agronomics.
The new capital will enable Meatly to build a 20,000-liter bioreactor facility in London, the largest of its kind in Europe, marking a pivotal step in the sector’s transition from R&D to industrial scale. Fit-out of the facility will begin immediately, with product releases expected to follow in 2027. The company’s initial commercial focus is the UK pet food market, where Meatly sold the world’s first cultivated pet food in 2025 following its regulatory authorization in 2024.
Since launching in 2022, Meatly has systematically addressed the key technical cost challenges facing the cultivated meat industry. In 2024, the company announced it had reduced the cost of its chemically defined protein-free medium to an industry-leading £0.22 per liter, and in 2025, it reduced the cost of bioreactors by approximately 10x. The company has built its own bioreactors and developed its own culture medium, combining technical rigor with financial discipline to create what its backers describe as the strongest possible foundation for scaling production.
Cultivated meat is gaining attention as one of the more sustainable approaches to protein production, requiring a fraction of the environmental impact of conventional meat. Meatly is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer for a new protein category in Europe, with ambitions to scale production across the UK and broader European markets.
KEY QUOTES:
“This investment marks a powerful endorsement – not just of Meatly, but of Britain’s foodtech and biotech sectors. Meatly has one focus – to make commercially viable cultivated meat a reality. Over the last four years, Meatly’s pioneering team has systematically focused on reducing key costs and building the strongest possible technical foundation for growth. Now we have our own industry-leading technology, and we are ready to scale.”
Owen Ensor, CEO, Meatly
“Rethinking how we produce protein is an essential part of tackling the climate crisis. We’ve invested in Meatly because they are showing it’s possible to produce real meat cost-competitively and with a fraction of the environmental impact. The team is focused on building a commercially viable path to scale, which will ultimately determine whether solutions like this can deliver meaningful change.”
Connor Duffy, Investment Manager, Clean Growth Fund
“Meatly is not just building a new product – it’s laying the foundations for an entirely new protein category. Cultivated meat is emerging as one of the most sustainable and ethical ways to produce meat today. From advancing the science to early retail sales for pets, Meatly has shown a clear ability to move from concept to real-world application, with the foundations to scale across Europe and globally.”
Elise Schumacher, Investor, Oyster Bay Venture Capital
“The market opportunity for sustainable and high-quality protein is enormous, but success in this category ultimately comes down to one thing: bringing down the cost of production. The team at Meatly has consistently cracked this challenge, reducing costs by building their own bioreactors, developing their own culture medium, and staying focused on what it takes to scale.”
Jim Mellon, Executive Chairman, Agronomics and Chairman and Founding Investor, Meatly
