New Culture Raises $3.5 Million To Disrupt The Dairy Industry

By Noah Long ● Sep 16, 2019
  • San Francisco based New Culture announced that it raised $3.5 million in a seed round of funding to disrupt the dairy industry

New Culture — a San Francisco based startup that is making animal-free dairy cheese — announced it has raised $3.5 million in a seed round of funding. Founded in late 2018, New Culture uses fermentation instead of animals to make dairy proteins. And with the addition of plant-based fats, sugars, and the traditional cheesemaking process, New Culture is making dairy cheese that is sustainable, healthy, ethical, and indistinguishable from animal-based dairy cheese in taste, texture, and function.

New Culture participated in the IndieBio biotech accelerator program, which has helped grow the businesses of food startups like Memphis Meats, Clara Foods, and New Age Meats.

“It’s fantastic to have the support of our investors as we look to grow the company and scale New Culture’s unique fermentation technology. We want to disrupt one of the oldest and largest food industries in the world by producing a better dairy cheese for anyone to enjoy – whether you’re a cheese lover, lactose-intolerant, vegan, environmentally conscious or health-conscious. The capital, knowledge, and network our investors bring to New Culture enables us to begin doing that,” said New Culture co-founder and CEO Matt Gibson. “We are experiencing one of the most significant and important food movements of our time. We are fortunate to be in a position to join other fantastic companies in building a more efficient and sustainable global food industry.”

This round of funding was led by Evolv Ventures — which is a $100 million venture fund backed by Kraft Heinz investing in emerging tech companies transforming the food industry. And other investors in the round include Bee Partners, Mayfield, CPT Capital, Boost VC, and SOSV.

“We’re excited to lead the seed round for New Culture. We have been impressed by what the team accomplished during IndieBio in a short period of time and look forward to supporting their vision to produce animal-free dairy cheese. This is another example of our focus on investing in the leading companies across the food value chain,” added Evolv Ventures general partner Steve Sanger.

Gibson founded New Culture with CSO Inja Radman to address two key issues, including the unsustainability of current dairy cheese production and the lack of companies working on a viable alternative cheese product.

“Fully plant-based cheese doesn’t work, and we know why. It lacks the crucial component which gives dairy cheese its signature properties, and that is the casein micelle, a supramolecular structure of dairy proteins that are found only in mammalian milk. We are developing the technology to make those casein micelles without involving animals in the process,” commented Radman.