Finless Foods🐟

a biting review of a scaleable company

January 25, 2022

this week’s company, Finless Foods, is looking to produce their own sashimi-grade fish in a lab…and hopefully get it served at Nobu🍣
imagine eating a piece of sushi and having the fish where it came from in a nearby tank, watching you eat it 👀
before you write off cellular agriculture, there are great benefits for the environment and even your health

plant-based: the initial play at entering this market, made from only nine ingredients
- set to fill your poke bowl this year! 🍚
cell-cultured: (no, not a well-traveled, beret-wearing, museum-going tuna) the company’s long-term play, to grow tuna in a food production facility from the fish’s cells 🧬
- the cells are collected, fed, grown, given a 3D structure, and ready to be cooked and served
why bluefin tuna? tuna is the most consumed fish in the world, there is no sustainable way to take it from the ocean, and it has high amounts of mercury that could harm humans

bulleted version:

so, what’s the catch?🎣 well, there is none; Finless Foods imagines a future where we don’t have to kill fish to eat them

industry: food & bev, alternative protein
year founded: 2017
company size: < 50 employees
recent investors: IndieBio (part of SOSV), Sand Hill Angels, Venture University (part of VU Venture Partners)
total amount raised: $41.3M

leading a high-growth market: the alternative seafood market has emerged due in part to constraints in our fish supply 🤿
- this market is expected to grow 28% per year through 2031
- the cultured meat category could provide .5% of the world’s protein by 2030
starting with a luxury: Finless Foods will have an easier time matching the cost of traditional bluefin tuna since its price is already sky-high (in 2018, one bluefin tuna sold for $3m) 💰
- from there they can scale into less expensive markets, similar to Tesla
thinking short-term and long-term: plant-based tuna wasn’t part of the original plan, but the company realized they can roll out a quality plant-based product before their cultured fish is approved
- once their cultured product is approved, they will already be connected with customers, distributors, and manufacturers

pick a swim lane: by focusing on both plant-based and cell-cultured, can the company go all in with both products?
slow to market: no current products are being sold, and the FDA has been working since 2018 to establish cell-cultured regulations
cultural adoption: in a study, less than 20% of respondents said they would be excited about lab-grown meat; Finless Foods and its competitors have a lot of educating and convincing to do
- maybe they should advertise microplastics that end up in the fish we eat

Michael Selden & Brian Wyrwas (both have biochemistry and molecular biology backgrounds)

why Finless Foods:

alternative fish is a fairly uncrowded market; with good funding, marketing, and two products coming soon, Finless Foods has the potential to be a major player that will bring us into the future of protein