Israeli cultured-meat developer Meat-Tech 3D Ltd. (TASE-MEAT) has announced that it has acquired a memorandum of understanding to acquire a cultured fat development company for $17.5 million in cash and shares. Meat-Tech is developing a 3D printing system for culture meat produced from in-vitro cell cultures that do not do any damage to livestock.
Meat-Tech CEO Sharon Fima said, "The development of the company targeted for acquisition complements ours. We are interested in printing the complete steak in the laboratory that contains all the ingredients of a steak including fat, while the target company also has fat that can be integrated in the future in cultured chicken and cultured fish products. They are also suitable for hybrid products, in other words plant-based products that add cultured fat from meat. We do not have such products but it's possible to cooperate with companies that manufacture plant-based meat alternatives and enrich it with cultured fat from animals."
Manufacturing just fat is simpler than printing the steak grown in the laboratory. Fat is a liquid ingredient in which every cell is identical while printing a steak is like building a lego tower in which every cell is of a different type (fat, tissue, protein) and each one has to be precisely in place. Therefore it is believed that buying the target company will allow Meat-Tech to generate revenue sooner because it will have a stake product in place earlier, although it is still not clear when that will be.
The company has raised NIS 27.8 million in its last two offerings and the aim is to list on Nasdaq. The company's share price rose 9.28% yesterday, giving a market cap of nearly NIS 300 million.
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