What are the current funding trends in alternative protein?

All funding deals in the alternative protein market over the last years

Below is the table listing all the deals. You can find our methodology at the end of this page.

If you want a deeper understanding of the market and its current dynamics, get our report covering the Alternative Protein Market.

Is alternative protein funding actually up in 2026?

Alternative protein funding is basically flat in dollars right now, but there is more financing activity than there was at the same point last year.

We tracked $176.2 million across 24 financings in the current YTD period, compared with $175.9 million across 21 deals over the same period in 2025. That is a 14.3% increase in deals but only a 0.2% increase in capital.

The difference between those two numbers tells us more than the headline total. More companies are managing to raise money, yet the market has not attracted meaningfully more capital overall.

Round sizes have changed too. The median financing has climbed from $2 million to $4.25 million, while the average has fallen from $8.37 million to $7.34 million. In practical terms, the bottom of the market is less crowded with tiny rounds, while there is still no return of the large checks that used to push the average much higher.

There is also a small timing issue that makes the 0.2% capital increase almost meaningless. Two transactions recorded in 2026, Evergreen Select at $6 million and Maia Farms at $2.7 million, were publicly announced this year but appear to involve capital secured at least partly during 2025. Evergreen is especially clear: the company said the $6 million had been raised in 2025 before being announced alongside its rebrand.

So we would not describe 2026 as a funding-growth year based on dollars. The improvement we can defend much more confidently is happening in the number and size distribution of financings.

Market measure	2026 YTD	2025 YTD	2024 YTD	2026 vs 2025
Deals	24	21	36	+14.3%
Unique companies	24	21	36	+14.3%
Total capital	$176.2M	$175.9M	$533.8M	+0.2%
Capital excluding >$50M rounds	$176.2M	$175.9M	$314.8M	+0.2%
Median round	$4.25M	$2.00M	$5.60M	+112.5%
Average round	$7.34M	$8.37M	$14.83M	-12.4%
Largest round	$30.0M	$33.7M	$100.0M	-11.0%
First-financing share	12.5%	19.0%	13.9%	-6.5 pp
Follow-on share	87.5%	81.0%	83.3%	+6.5 pp

Are more alternative protein companies getting funded, or are rounds just getting bigger?

More alternative protein companies are getting funded currently, and the middle of the market has become noticeably stronger at the same time.

We found 24 funded companies in the current period, against 21 a year earlier. Since every company appears only once in the comparable 2026 sample, the 14% rise in deal count is also a 14% rise in the number of businesses receiving capital.

The bigger change is inside the round-size distribution.

In 2025, 71.4% of comparable financings were below $5 million. That share has fallen to 54.2%. Meanwhile, rounds between $5 million and $20 million have jumped from 9.5% to 33.3% of activity.

There were only two financings in that middle bracket last year. We count eight now. Green Rebel Foods raised $10.5 million, Plantopia $9 million, Pacifico Biolabs $8.15 million and MAASH $6.8 million. SuperMeat added a $6 million initial Series A close.

That shift explains why the median financing has more than doubled even while total capital barely moved.

The market is still smaller than it was in 2024, when 36 companies received funding over the comparable period. But compared with last year, investors are writing a larger number of meaningful mid-sized checks rather than clustering so heavily below $5 million.

Deal-size bracket	2026 deals	2026 deal share	2026 capital share	2025 deal share
Under $5M	13	54.2%	16.2%	71.4%
$5M–<$20M	8	33.3%	38.9%	9.5%
$20M–<$50M	3	12.5%	44.8%	19.0%
$50M–<$100M	0	0%	0%	0%
$100M+	0	0%	0%	0%
Median round	-	$4.25M	-	$2.00M
Average round	-	$7.34M	-	$8.37M
Largest round	-	$30.0M	-	$33.7M

Would alternative protein funding still look healthy without the biggest deals?

Yes. Alternative protein funding currently holds up surprisingly well once the biggest rounds are removed, especially compared with 2024.

There are no financings above $50 million in this year's comparable period. Verley's $30 million equity Series A is the largest transaction we found, followed by Standing Ovation at $28.5 million and The Protein Brewery at $20.5 million.

Removing rounds above $50 million therefore leaves the 2026 total unchanged at $176.2 million.

That was very different in 2024. Formo raised $61 million, Infinite Roots raised $58 million and Meati recorded a $100 million financing. Remove deals above $50 million from that year's comparable period and capital drops from $533.8 million to $314.8 million.

The comparison with last year is interesting for another reason. The five largest 2025 deals absorbed 78.6% of all capital, whereas the current top five account for 57.4%.

Funding is still concentrated, but fewer dollars now depend on the handful of largest transactions. The current $176 million total therefore gives a better picture of what is happening across the market than the much bigger 2024 headline did.

Why is fermentation suddenly taking over alternative protein funding?

Fermentation is where alternative protein investors are putting the most money these days, and the shift is large enough to change the shape of the whole market.

We count 11 fermentation-protein financings representing $119.5 million. That is 45.8% of all current deals and 67.9% of all capital.

At the same point last year, fermentation accounted for only 14.3% of deals and 37.9% of funding. Deal share has risen by 31 percentage points and capital share by roughly 30 points.

Several sizeable financings arrived together. Verley raised $30 million of equity for its precision-fermented dairy proteins. Standing Ovation raised $28.5 million of equity around its casein platform. The Protein Brewery added $20.5 million to its Series B. Vivici secured $11.6 million of equity within its European Innovation Council package. Pacifico Biolabs raised $8.15 million, while MAASH added $6.8 million of equity.

Those companies are also working across different parts of fermentation. Verley, Standing Ovation and Vivici focus heavily on functional dairy proteins. The Protein Brewery and MAASH are developing mycelium or mycoprotein ingredients. Pacifico is building around biomass-fermented mycelium.

That breadth makes fermentation's rise much harder to dismiss as a quirky one-company effect.

Category	2026 deals	Deal share	Capital	Capital share
Fermentation Proteins	11	45.8%	$119.5M	67.9%
Plant Based Dairy	5	20.8%	$16.5M	9.4%
Plant Based Meat	4	16.7%	$25.0M	14.2%
Cultivated Meat	2	8.3%	$12.0M	6.8%
Plant Based Eggs	2	8.3%	$3.09M	1.8%
Fermentation, 2025 deal share	3 deals	14.3%	$66.7M	37.9%
Plant Based Meat, 2025 deal share	8 deals	38.1%	$62.2M	35.4%
Cultivated Meat, 2025 deal share	3 deals	14.3%	$34.1M	19.4%

Is fermentation funding really broad, or are three big rounds doing all the work?

Fermentation's funding surge is broad enough to be real, although three large rounds still provide most of the dollars.

Verley, Standing Ovation and The Protein Brewery contribute roughly $79 million between them. That works out to about two-thirds of the $119.5 million going into fermentation.

If we stopped there, the category could look more concentrated than it really is.

The other side of the picture is the deal count. Eleven fermentation companies have raised money in the current period, compared with only three over the equivalent stretch of 2025. Pacifico Biolabs, Vivici, MAASH, Those Vegan Cowboys, AuX Labs and several smaller businesses sit below the three leaders.

The longer comparison also helps. Fermentation already represented one-third of deals and just over half of capital during the comparable 2024 period. Last year's weak showing increasingly looks like a dip between two stronger periods.

Today, fermentation has exceeded even its 2024 deal share. That gives us much more confidence in the category rotation than we would have if the entire increase came from one $100 million financing.

Are investors abandoning plant-based meat and cultivated meat?

Investors have pulled back sharply from plant-based meat, while cultivated meat is also weaker but much harder to judge from such a small sample.

Plant-based meat has gone from 38.1% of deals last year to 16.7% now. Its share of capital has fallen almost in parallel, from 35.4% to 14.2%.

The similar fall in deals and dollars is revealing. There is no single missing megadeal creating an optical illusion; activity itself has contracted.

Last year's comparable period included Project Eaden, Rival Foods, Tiba Tempeh, High Time Foods and other funded businesses. This year has produced only four qualifying plant-based meat transactions.

Cultivated meat is smaller again. We count two deals worth $12 million, giving it 6.8% of current capital versus 19.4% last year.

Even that $12 million deserves some caution. Half comes from Evergreen Select, whose $6 million was announced in 2026 even though the company said the capital had been raised in 2025. SuperMeat's $6 million initial Series A close provides the other half.

Investor attention has clearly moved away from both categories relative to fermentation. The plant-based meat conclusion is particularly strong because the decline appears in both transaction volume and capital share. Cultivated meat, with only two recorded rounds, remains much noisier.

Can new alternative protein startups still get funded?

Yes, but new alternative protein startups currently receive only a tiny part of the money going into the market.

Only three of the 24 current financings are classified as first financings. Together, those deals account for about $4.1 million.

The other 21 are follow-ons worth $172.1 million. That means previously funded companies absorb roughly 97.7% of the capital we tracked.

The Bland Company's $2.67 million Seed and 1.5 Degree's $1 million Seed show that first-time fundraising is still possible. What we do not see is a large new cohort entering the market with substantial rounds.

The contrast with established companies is huge. Verley, Standing Ovation, The Protein Brewery, Vivici, Pacifico Biolabs and Green Rebel Foods had all spent years building their businesses before the current financings.

As seen above, deal activity overall has improved. Yet that improvement is mainly coming from companies that investors already know rather than from a new wave of startups.

Our first-financing classification uses public financing histories and should be treated as directional rather than as a perfect reconstruction of every previous transaction. The gap is still wide enough to make the underlying pattern very difficult to miss.

Financing pattern	2026 YTD	2025 YTD	2024 YTD
First financings	3	4	5
First-financing share	12.5%	19.0%	13.9%
Capital in first financings	$4.1M	$37.0M	$14.1M
Median first financing	$1.0M	$1.4M	$1.66M
Follow-ons	21	17	30
Follow-on share	87.5%	81.0%	83.3%
Follow-on capital	$172.1M	$138.8M	$518.6M
Median follow-on	$6.0M	$2.1M	$6.5M

Is early-stage alternative protein funding really coming back?

Early-stage labels are becoming more common, but alternative protein investors are not suddenly rushing back into very young companies.

Seed and Series A rounds now represent 62.5% of current deals, up from 57.1% last year. Later-stage Series B, C, D and growth rounds have dropped from 19% to 8.3%.

On its own, that would look like a modest early-stage comeback.

Company age tells a different story. The median business receiving funding this year is five years old, compared with four years in both prior comparable periods. Even the median Seed-stage recipient is five years old.

Green Rebel Foods was founded in 2020 before raising its current Series A. Pacifico Biolabs dates from 2022. Verley also dates from 2022. Plant-based dairy is even more mature, with a median funded-company age of eight years.

These businesses can still have Seed or Series A labels because food biotechnology often requires long technical and regulatory development cycles before a company reaches industrial scale.

There is one more reason to avoid overreading the stage data: seven of the 24 current transactions have no reliably established stage.

The cleaner interpretation is that investors are financing relatively early rounds in businesses that have already had several years to prove themselves. That is quite different from a broad revival in company formation.

Why is Europe getting most of the alternative protein money right now?

Europe currently dominates alternative protein funding because its companies are raising much larger rounds, especially in fermentation.

Half of current financings involve European companies, but they account for $120.6 million, or 68.5% of all capital.

Europe actually had a larger share of deals last year. Its transaction share has fallen by 16.7 percentage points, while its share of capital has increased by 7.5 points.

Round size explains the difference. The European median has risen from roughly $2.05 million to $5.65 million.

France alone contributes $60.8 million through only three transactions, largely because of Verley and Standing Ovation. The Netherlands adds The Protein Brewery and Vivici. Belgium contributes MAASH and Those Vegan Cowboys, while Germany has Pacifico Biolabs.

North America is moving in almost the opposite direction. Its deal share has climbed from 9.5% to 25%, but its capital share has slipped from 19.9% to 15.4%. More North American companies are raising, yet the checks are generally smaller.

This regional split is closely tied to the technology mix. Europe's current funding advantage comes largely from the same fermentation companies driving the category shift across the market.

Region	2026 deals	Deal share	Capital	Capital share
Europe	12	50.0%	$120.6M	68.5%
North America	6	25.0%	$27.2M	15.4%
Middle East	3	12.5%	$16.4M	9.3%
Asia-Pacific	3	12.5%	$11.9M	6.8%
Europe median round	-	-	$5.65M	-
North America median round	-	-	$3.5M	-
Middle East median round	-	-	$6.0M	-
Asia-Pacific median round	-	-	$1.0M	-
France alone	3	12.5%	$60.8M	34.5%

Are big food companies putting more money into alternative proteins again?

Corporate investors are showing up more often in alternative protein rounds this year, particularly around fermentation and dairy technology.

Strategic investors appear in eight of the 24 current financings, or one-third of all deals. That compares with 23.8% last year and 25% two years ago.

Standing Ovation is probably the clearest example. Danone Ventures joined existing shareholder Bel Group in its latest financing while the company prepares to commercialize precision-fermented casein.

MAASH has Tereos among its new investors. Plantopia brought in Schreiber Foods alongside dairy players Yotvata and Tara. Finally Foods has backing from Central Bottling Company. Those deals put companies with manufacturing, ingredients, dairy or distribution experience directly around the cap table.

Interestingly, the median strategic-backed financing has fallen from $15.6 million to about $7.5 million. Corporate participation is appearing across more ordinary-sized transactions rather than being limited to a few headline rounds.

Eight deals are not enough to call this a permanent shift in food-industry investment strategy. For now, though, corporates are clearly more present in our current sample than they were during the same period last year.

Is one group of VCs driving the alternative protein recovery?

No single venture fund is driving the current alternative protein funding improvement.

We found a disclosed lead or co-lead in 15 of the 24 financings, representing 22 different lead investors. None appears as a lead more than once.

Alven led Verley. Ecotechnologies 2 and Crédit Mutuel Innovation co-led Standing Ovation. ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund led The Protein Brewery's extension. Stray Dog Capital led Pacifico Biolabs. Active Impact Investments backed Maia Farms, while NYA Ventures and Nàdarra Ventures led AuX Labs.

That investor spread makes the current activity more convincing. We would be more cautious if most of the additional deals came from one specialist fund recycling capital through its own portfolio.

Some prominent names from the comparable 2025 period are absent as leads this time around, including APG, Future Ventures, Resilience Reserve and Creadev. A nine-month absence tells us very little about whether any of those investors have changed strategy, so we would not read more into it.

The recent financing activity comes from a fairly broad investor base.

Why are fermentation companies able to raise now?

Several of the largest fermentation companies are raising after hitting concrete commercial or regulatory milestones, which helps explain why investors are comfortable putting more money behind them now.

Verley's financing is a good example. Bpifrance's announcement says the €32 million package will support industrialization and commercial deployment of its FermWhey functional dairy proteins. The company is already positioning those ingredients for real formulations such as yogurts and protein shots.

Standing Ovation is further along the same road. Its financing includes $28.5 million of equity and is meant to accelerate commercial rollout in North America while increasing manufacturing capacity. Danone Ventures joined Bel Group in the round.

The Protein Brewery closed its €18 million extension shortly after Fermotein received EU Novel Food authorization. The company says the money will help expand production above 2,000 tonnes and support European sales, with its 2026 US capacity already sold out.

Vivici's funding came after the company had commercialized its beta-lactoglobulin ingredient and launched fermentation-derived lactoferrin in the US. According to Vivici, the new capital is intended to increase market access and supply.

Pacifico Biolabs raised its Series A to scale mycelium-protein production, while MAASH's latest financing is tied to a demonstration facility and preparation for industrial production that could eventually reach 10,000 tonnes per year.

Taken together, these deals look much closer to scale-up financing than speculative bets on whether fermentation science can work at all.

We should still separate correlation from causation. Regulatory progress and commercial readiness do not prove why an investor signed a term sheet. They do show that several of the companies attracting the largest checks currently have specific milestones to finance rather than open-ended research programs.

How much can we trust the apparent 2026 alternative protein recovery?

We are confident that deal activity has improved, but the tiny increase in headline capital is too fragile to call genuine growth.

The clearest issue is Evergreen Select. Its $6 million financing is recorded under its public announcement date in 2026, yet the company itself said the money had been raised during 2025.

Maia Farms presents a similar, although less clear-cut, timing issue. Its $2.7 million Seed was announced in 2026 while company communications described it as funding secured during 2025.

If we simply remove those two transactions from the current period, the market falls from 24 deals and $176.2 million to roughly 22 deals and $167.5 million. Depending on the exact treatment used for Maia, the adjusted total is around the high-$160 millions rather than $176 million.

That would turn the apparent 0.2% capital increase into a modest decline while still leaving deal activity slightly above the comparable 2025 level.

Another comparability issue sits on the other side of the equation. Aleph Farms' $29 million 2025 transaction included $22 million of SAFE capital that had already been raised and was converted during the announced financing, with only $7 million of new capital in the first close.

These cases are exactly why we put much more weight on the broad pattern than on a few tenths of a percentage point in aggregate capital. The robust part of the 2026 story is the stronger deal count, larger median and bigger $5 million-to-$20 million layer. The claim that total funding itself has grown does not survive much scrutiny.

Is alternative protein funding anywhere near its 2024 level?

Alternative protein funding remains far below the 2024 market, even after we strip out that year's biggest rounds.

Current capital of $176.2 million is 67% below the $533.8 million recorded over the equivalent 2024 period. Deal count is also down by one-third, from 36 to 24.

The raw dollar comparison exaggerates the difference because 2024 contained several unusually large financings. Infinite Roots raised $58 million, Formo raised $61 million and Meati reached $100 million.

Removing all rounds above $50 million reduces the comparable 2024 total to $314.8 million.

That is a much fairer benchmark, but it is still about $139 million above the current market.

The composition has also changed. Two years ago, large financings contributed much more heavily to the total. These days, the biggest current equity rounds stop around $30 million, while fermentation absorbs a much larger share of the available capital.

Anyone waiting for the alternative protein funding environment of a few years ago to return has not seen it yet. What has emerged instead is a smaller market with a healthier middle layer and a much narrower set of technologies attracting serious investor attention.

Has 2026 already caught up with last year's alternative protein market?

Alternative protein deal activity is catching up with 2025 much faster than capital is.

The full 2025 calendar year produced 33 financings and $369.5 million. The current 2026 period has reached 24 deals and $176.2 million.

That puts current activity at 72.7% of last year's full-year deal count but only 47.7% of its capital.

The same mismatch appears against 2024. Current 2026 funding equals only 29.2% of that year's full-year capital, while the deal count has already reached 57.1% of the 2024 total.

We would not annualize those figures. Venture financing arrives unevenly, and one large transaction late in the year can change the capital total dramatically.

For now, the comparison reinforces what we have seen throughout the market: transactions are recovering faster than dollars.

Are alternative protein investors becoming more selective?

Alternative protein investors look more selective now, with capital increasingly going to companies that have survived the earlier funding cycle and can show something concrete beyond the original technology thesis.

Several pieces fit together here. The median funded company is five years old. First financings represent only 12.5% of deals. Follow-ons account for nearly all current capital. Fermentation has captured more than two-thirds of the dollars, while the $5 million-to-$20 million financing bracket has become much more active.

The company stories point in the same direction. Standing Ovation is funding commercial rollout. Verley is moving into industrialization and commercialization. The Protein Brewery has cleared a major European regulatory hurdle and is increasing production. Vivici already has ingredients on the market. MAASH is preparing a demonstration facility and larger industrial scale.

As pointed out above, even the apparent early-stage shift mostly involves businesses that have been operating for several years.

Investors still want exposure to alternative proteins, but they are asking companies to show more before committing meaningful capital. These days, surviving long enough to reach commercial, regulatory or manufacturing milestones appears to count for more than simply being in a fashionable protein category.

What is actually changing in alternative protein funding?

The biggest change is happening underneath the headline capital number. Current funding is almost identical to last year's comparable total, so there is no convincing dollar boom. We do, however, see more financings, a median round that has more than doubled and a much larger group of deals between $5 million and $20 million. The market's middle has improved.

Fermentation is the clearest structural shift. It now accounts for nearly half of transactions and more than two-thirds of capital, with funding spread across 11 companies. The largest rounds increasingly sit around precision-fermented dairy proteins, mycoprotein and other fermentation-derived ingredients.

At the same time, plant-based meat has lost a large amount of investor attention. Its deal share and capital share have both fallen by roughly 21 percentage points from last year's comparable period. Cultivated meat is also weaker, although two current transactions are too small a sample for a similarly strong long-term conclusion.

The companies benefiting from the current improvement are mostly not newcomers. Follow-on financings dominate the market, first-time raises remain rare and funded businesses are getting older. Even many Seed and Series A rounds involve companies that have been working on their technology for four, five or six years.

Corporate investors are also more visible, particularly around fermentation and dairy platforms. Danone, Bel, Tereos, Schreiber Foods and other industry groups now appear around companies approaching commercial manufacturing or market entry.

The trend we would treat most cautiously is the tiny increase in total capital. Date anomalies around Evergreen Select and Maia Farms alone are bigger than the reported 0.2% year-on-year rise. The higher deal count and stronger middle financing layer are much more reliable indicators of improvement.

Overall, the alternative protein market looks healthier than it did a year ago, but also more demanding. Capital has become easier to find for a certain type of company: established, technically de-risked and increasingly close to selling or manufacturing at scale. That is a much narrower recovery than a broad reopening of alternative protein venture capital.