Israeli alternative fish company Plantish, has raised $12.5 million in seed funding, led by State Of Mind Ventures, with participation from Pitango Health Tech, Unovis, TechAviv Founder Partners, SmartAgro, E2JDJ, Alumni Ventures, FoodHack Syndicate and OurCrowd. The Rehovot based company, which raised $2 million in pre-seed funding shortly after it was founded in June 2021, says that this is the largest seed round to date in the fast growing alternative seafood market.
Plantish, which uses plant proteins to create premium, whole-cut fish, unveiled a 100% plant-based whole-cut salmon fillet in January, which mimics cooked salmon in texture, taste, appearance, and structure. The company operates under the slogan "there are not enough fish in the sea," saying that its mission is to save the oceans. Plantish will be launching Plantish salmon in pop-up locations at the end of the year, and will be officially launching their product nation-wide in restaurants by 2024.
Plantish cofounder and CEO Ofek Ron said, "We’ve already seen it happen in the meat market, now it’s the time for fish, and in particular salmon, which accounts for $50 billion in the half a trillion dollar seafood market. The problem has been that fish is so difficult to replicate until now."
At present, Plantish says that the alternative seafood sector primarily consists of minced fish options, such as fish fingers and fried fish, due to the technical complexities of whole-cut production. Plantish has overcome this by developing a versatile, patent-pending additive manufacturing technology that will produce plant-based fish alternatives. By deconstructing salmon to understand its different components, the team of experts is able to create plant-based connective tissue and muscle tissue layers, one super-fine layer at a time. This allows for capturing the experience of eating salmon, while doing so at scale and low cost, which will make it a suitable substitute for foodservice, restaurants, and retail.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on March 16, 2022.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2022.