Alternative Protein Funding Tracker (100 deals)

Our funding tracker covering the alternative protein market

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

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

Is alternative protein funding actually a big market right now?

Alternative protein funding is still a meaningful billion-dollar market, although a normal company raises far less than the headline total suggests.

We tracked 100 qualifying financings across 91 companies, representing approximately $1.150 billion of disclosed or estimated capital. The median financing was $5 million, compared with an $11.5 million average. A few large transactions pull that average up quickly.

Four rounds above $50 million generated 23.8% of all capital. Even after removing them, $876.1 million remains. Alternative protein funding therefore has real depth beyond its biggest deals, while ordinary fundraising still happens on a much smaller scale.

The market also looks selective these days. The Good Food Institute's current investment tracker shows the same broad pattern outside our own dataset: using GFI's separate methodology, fermentation companies raised $132 million in Q2 2026, versus $41 million for plant-based companies and $25 million for cultivated protein companies. The money is still moving, but investors are choosing where to place large checks much more carefully.

How many alternative protein companies are actually getting funded?

The alternative protein funding market currently consists of a surprisingly broad group of companies: our 100 financings are spread across 91 businesses.

Eighty-three companies appear only once during the period. Seven raised twice and just one appears three times. That gives us a repeat-fundraising rate of 8.8%.

Those single-round companies still collected $936.2 million, or 81.4% of all capital. The market therefore cannot be reduced to a small circle of startups coming back every few months for more money.

At the same time, appearing in the market and attracting serious capital are two different things. Nearly half of companies never pass $5 million of cumulative funding during our window, while only 5.5% get beyond $50 million.

Is most alternative protein funding going to a handful of startups?

Alternative protein funding is fairly concentrated today, but no single startup comes close to controlling the market.

Meati Foods is the largest company in our period with $100 million, equal to 8.7% of market capital. The top five companies reach 28.7%, while the top ten reach 46.3%.

That leaves a market where a relatively small upper tier attracts a lot of the money without one company swallowing the whole category. Formo raised $61 million, Infinite Roots $58 million and The EVERY Company $55 million. The Protein Brewery reached $56.1 million across two financings, while Mosa Meat, Vivici and Standing Ovation also accumulated sizeable amounts through more than one transaction.

The gap below that group is large. Almost half of the companies we tracked never raised more than $5 million during the period.

Company	Qualifying rounds	Capital during the period
Meati Foods	1	$100.0M
Formo	1	$61.0M
Infinite Roots	1	$58.0M
The Protein Brewery	2	$56.1M
The EVERY Company	1	$55.0M
Mosa Meat	2	$46.5M
Vivici	2	$45.3M
Heura Foods	1	$42.9M
OATSIDE	1	$35.3M
Standing Ovation	2	$32.65M

How much can an alternative protein startup realistically raise?

A typical alternative protein round is around $5 million, and fundraising becomes much harder once a company needs tens of millions rather than a few million.

Forty-eight of the 100 financings we tracked were below $5 million. Another 31 fell between $5 million and $20 million. In other words, 79% of deals were below $20 million.

The dollars tell a very different story. Those 79 financings together supplied only 30.8% of market capital.

Seventeen rounds between $20 million and $50 million generated $521.1 million, or 45.3% of every dollar raised. This is where the market's financial weight really sits.

For founders, that creates a fairly clear progression. Raising $1 million to $10 million is common enough. Getting into the $20 million-plus range puts a company in a much smaller club, usually because investors are being asked to finance manufacturing, commercial expansion or both.

Round size	Deals	Share of deals	Capital	Share of capital
Below $5M	48	48%	$92.3M	8.0%
$5M to below $20M	31	31%	$262.7M	22.8%
$20M to below $50M	17	17%	$521.1M	45.3%
$50M to below $100M	3	3%	$174.0M	15.1%
$100M+	1	1%	$100.0M	8.7%
Total	100	100%	$1.150B	100%

Which type of alternative protein is getting the most funding now?

Fermentation is currently the clear money magnet in alternative protein, with 31% of deals attracting 51.2% of all capital.

We counted $589.1 million across 31 fermentation-protein financings. Plant-based meat came next with $270.4 million, followed by plant-based dairy at $129.6 million and cultivated meat at $118.9 million.

The difference between plant-based meat and dairy is especially useful. Each category produced 25 deals, yet meat startups raised more than twice as much capital. Plant-based dairy had plenty of fundraising activity, just at much smaller check sizes.

The plant-based eggs category looks even thinner once we inspect the companies behind the total. Six financings generated $36.1 million, but Plantible's $30 million Series B alone contributed 83% of that amount.

Cultivated seafood barely appears at all, with one $6 million deal. There simply is not enough financing activity there yet to talk about a real funding market.

Category	Deals	Companies	Capital	Share of capital
Fermentation Proteins	31	26	$589.1M	51.2%
Plant Based Meat	25	25	$270.4M	23.5%
Plant Based Dairy	25	22	$129.6M	11.3%
Cultivated Meat	12	11	$118.9M	10.3%
Plant Based Eggs	6	6	$36.1M	3.1%
Cultivated Seafood	1	1	$6.0M	0.5%
Total	100	91 unique overall	$1.150B	100%

Why is fermentation attracting so much alternative protein funding?

Fermentation is pulling in bigger alternative protein checks because several of its leading companies have reached the expensive part of the journey: manufacturing at industrial scale and selling real volumes.

The largest deals show that clearly. Meati raised $100 million while expanding retail distribution. Formo's $61 million Series B came alongside the rollout of its cheese alternatives through more than 2,000 REWE, BILLA and METRO stores. Infinite Roots raised $58 million to push its mycelium platform toward wider commercial use. The EVERY Company raised $55 million to expand manufacturing capacity and move toward profitability.

Recent developments make that pattern even clearer. In June 2026, EVERY announced that it was quadrupling production capacity with Huvepharma. The company said orders secured during the first four months of 2026 were equivalent to 550% of its entire 2025 order volume. That is exactly the kind of commercial growth that requires substantially more capital than running a pilot plant.

The Protein Brewery provides another current example. After raising €30 million in Series B equity in 2025, it added an €18 million extension in 2026. The company said the new money would help lift production capacity above 2,000 metric tonnes and support its European launch. Shortly afterward, the European Union formally authorized its Rhizomucor pusillus mycelium as a novel food.

GFI's research on commercial manufacturing explains why these checks become so large. Pilot facilities can often be financed with equity and grants, while commercial plants eventually need a much heavier combination of equity, debt, public financing and industrial partnerships.

The result is visible in our numbers. Fermentation has become the part of alternative protein where investors are most often being asked to fund the jump from promising science to actual production infrastructure.

Is plant-based food still getting funded?

Plant-based alternative protein is still getting funded regularly, although the typical checks are much smaller than the largest fermentation rounds.

Plant-based meat and plant-based dairy together account for half of every financing we tracked. Investors have clearly kept writing checks in both categories.

The differences appear when we look at size. Plant-based meat has a $6 million median round and $270.4 million of total capital. Plant-based dairy has a $2.23 million median and $129.6 million of capital despite matching meat's 25 deals.

There are still large exceptions. Heura raised $42.9 million, while OATSIDE raised $35.3 million. Those deals show that investors will finance sizeable plant-based businesses when they see enough commercial potential.

What has changed is where some of the biggest dairy and egg replacement bets now sit. Formo, Vivici, Standing Ovation and EVERY target cheese, whey, casein or egg functionality through fermentation, so their funding appears in the fermentation category rather than conventional plant-based dairy or eggs.

That shift in technology helps explain why plant-based deal counts remain high while so much large-round capital has moved elsewhere.

Is cultivated meat still getting serious funding?

Cultivated meat is still attracting real money, but the funding market remains thin once we look beyond a few sizeable companies.

We found 12 cultivated-meat financings across 11 companies worth $118.9 million. The median deal was $6 million.

Mosa Meat dominates the upper end. Its €40 million financing was announced to scale production, reduce manufacturing costs and prepare for market entry. A later crowdfunding round added roughly another $4 million during our period.

The category's stage data are harder to read than elsewhere because five of the 12 transactions have no reliable stage label. That makes any claim about a precise Series A-to-B-to-C funnel too confident.

Commercialisation is still moving, though. Mosa Meat filed its first EU market-authorization request in 2025 and has continued working on production economics. The money therefore has a concrete destination: getting cultivated products through regulation, lowering costs and preparing for real manufacturing.

For now, cultivated meat has credible funded companies but nowhere near the scale-capital depth we see in fermentation.

Are investors still backing new alternative protein startups?

Alternative protein funding these days goes overwhelmingly to companies that have already raised money before.

We classified 85 financings as follow-ons and only 14 as first financings, with one remaining uncertain. Follow-on rounds captured $1.086 billion, equal to 94.4% of the capital we tracked.

First financings were also much smaller. Their median was $1.58 million, compared with $6 million for follow-ons.

The age of the companies tells the same story. Fifty-four of the 89 businesses with a known founding year were created between 2020 and 2022. Only a handful were founded from 2024 onward.

Capital is therefore circulating mainly through a generation of startups that investors already know. New companies still enter the market, but they account for a small share of the money.

How old are alternative protein companies when they raise big rounds?

Alternative protein companies usually spend several years proving themselves before investors write genuinely large checks.

The median company in our research was four years old at the time of financing. That rises steadily as rounds get more mature: three years at Seed, four at Series A, six at Series B and seven at Series C.

Companies raising more than $50 million had a median age of seven years, versus four years for companies raising below $5 million.

The major rounds fit that pattern. Meati was founded in 2016 before its $100 million financing. Infinite Roots dates to 2018, Formo to 2019 and The Protein Brewery to 2020. EVERY, which raised $55 million during our period, dates back to 2014.

As a result, the current funding market is largely paying for years of technical work, regulatory progress, manufacturing development and customer acquisition. Very large alternative protein rounds rarely arrive at the beginning of a company's life.

Where does alternative protein funding start to dry up?

Alternative protein funding narrows dramatically after Series B, which is currently the clearest weak point in the financing ladder.

We identified 35 Seed deals, 20 Series A rounds and 16 Series B rounds. After that come only two classified Series C financings and one Series D+ round.

The check sizes rise fast before the funnel tightens. Median funding moves from $2 million at Seed to $9.33 million at Series A and $28.25 million at Series B. Series B alone absorbed $430.2 million, more than any other named stage.

The drop from B to C is far sharper than the earlier transitions. There are 1.75 Seed deals for every A and 1.25 A deals for every B, followed by eight Series B rounds for each Series C.

Twenty-two deals have an unknown stage, so we should leave some room for classification noise. Even with that limitation, the late-stage gap is too large to ignore.

Stage	Deals	Capital	Median round	Median company age
Seed	35	$83.2M	$2.0M	3 years
Series A	20	$262.9M	$9.33M	4 years
Series B	16	$430.2M	$28.25M	6 years
Series C	2	$125.4M	$62.7M	7 years
Series D+	1	$55.0M	$55.0M	11 years
Growth Equity	4	$28.4M	$5.0M	9 years
Unknown	22	$165.0M	$4.75M	5 years

Why do so few alternative protein startups reach Series C?

The Series C shortage in alternative protein appears to come from a financing problem that gets much harder once companies need full commercial infrastructure.

By Series B, many companies have already proved enough science to raise tens of millions. The next stage asks a different set of questions. Can production run reliably at industrial volumes? Can unit costs fall far enough? Are customers actually signing contracts? Does regulation allow the product to reach the target market? Can a factory be financed without relying entirely on expensive equity?

Those questions are showing up more clearly in fundraising conversations now. Vivici wrote in late 2025 that fermentation investors had become heavily focused on execution and delivery rather than the strength of the story alone. Its own progress illustrates what investors increasingly want to see: commercial offtake agreements, U.S. product launches and a further €12.5 million EIC financing package in 2026 to expand supply and market access.

The Protein Brewery followed a similar path. Its 2026 financing arrived alongside regulatory progress, contracted demand and plans for higher production capacity. EVERY's latest manufacturing expansion followed a sharp increase in orders.

GFI's work on commercial-scale financing reaches the same underlying problem from another angle: once capex becomes large, venture equity alone becomes an expensive way to fund factories, while conventional lenders may still see the company as too risky.

As we saw above, the B-to-C drop is unusually steep. The companies that cross it increasingly need to look financeable as industrial businesses, not simply exciting food-tech startups.

Do corporate investors actually matter in alternative protein?

Corporate and strategic investors matter more in alternative protein once companies get close to manufacturing and commercial scale.

Thirty percent of the financings we tracked included at least one disclosed strategic investor. Their median round was $9.5 million, compared with $3.28 million when no strategic investor was identified.

Only three strategic-backed deals were at Seed, while eight were Series B. That timing makes sense when we look at who is investing.

Formo brought REWE Group into its $61 million round while the retailer was helping put its products into stores. Standing Ovation's 2026 Series B included both Bel Group and Danone Ventures as the company pushed animal-free dairy proteins toward commercialization. Vivici was created with backing from dsm-firmenich and Fonterra and later raised €32.5 million in Series A financing after already securing customer offtake agreements.

Plantible's $30 million Series B attracted Betagro Ventures, Chipotle's Cultivate Next, Griffith Foods' Nourish Ventures and ICL. Those companies bring food production, restaurant demand, formulation and ingredient expertise around the same table.

Corporate money therefore becomes especially useful when a startup needs customers, manufacturing know-how, distribution or an industrial partner alongside cash.

Which investors keep coming back to alternative protein?

Alternative protein has plenty of investors, but remarkably few lead investors keep showing up across multiple deals.

Lead information was publicly available for 62 of our 100 financings. Those deals contained 82 different lead or co-lead names, while only seven leads appeared more than once.

Grosvenor Food & AgTech is attached to the largest combined value of recurring-led rounds, helped by Meati's $100 million financing. Invest-NL, Novo Holdings and ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund recur heavily around fermentation. Siddhi Capital, Creadev and Joyful Ventures appear more than once in other parts of the market.

This leaves alternative protein with a wide financing network and a relatively small group of repeat underwriters. A founder can find many investors interested in the sector; finding investors willing to lead successive scale-up rounds is much harder.

The limited lead-investor disclosure means we should be more cautious here than with category or deal-size analysis. Still, 82 lead names across 62 disclosed deals gives a strong sense of how fragmented the investor base currently is.

Recurring lead	Deals	Combined value of those rounds	Main exposure
Grosvenor Food & AgTech	2	$105.0M	Fermentation / Plant Based Meat
Invest-NL	2	$61.7M	Fermentation
Novo Holdings	2	$58.8M	Fermentation / Plant Based Meat
ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund	2	$48.5M	Fermentation
Siddhi Capital	2	$39.0M	Dairy / Eggs
Creadev	2	$34.0M	Plant Based Meat
Joyful Ventures	2	$4.0M	Fermentation / Seed

Where is alternative protein funding happening today?

Europe currently has the broadest alternative protein funding market, while North America produces fewer deals with somewhat larger checks.

Europe generated 56 of our 100 financings and $684 million of capital. North America contributed 24 deals and $333.8 million.

The median North American financing was $6 million versus $4.33 million in Europe. Europe still has far more company depth, with major funded businesses spread across Germany, France, the Netherlands, the UK and several Nordic markets.

Asia-Pacific sits much further behind in dollars. The region produced 12 deals but only $66.6 million of funding, and OATSIDE alone accounted for more than half of that capital. The Middle East recorded eight deals worth $65.7 million.

The fresh European activity is particularly interesting. Standing Ovation raised its Series B in 2026, Vivici received additional EIC backing, and The Protein Brewery completed a new extension before receiving EU authorization for Fermotein's underlying mycelium. Europe is therefore producing more than a high deal count; several companies are actively crossing regulatory and manufacturing milestones as well.

Are alternative protein funding totals completely reliable?

Alternative protein funding totals need to be read as carefully researched estimates because venture rounds are often messier than the headline number suggests.

We found no exact duplicate financings and no source-backed error large enough to justify overriding the core dataset. The complications mostly concern how individual deals are structured and reported.

Twenty financing amounts are expressed as estimates rather than perfectly clean figures. Some are approximate currency conversions and four are explicit lower bounds. Tender Food, for example, announced that it had raised more than $11 million, so we preserve the amount as greater than $11 million rather than pretending the exact figure is known.

Extensions also appear regularly. The Protein Brewery's €18 million 2026 financing was an extension of its earlier Series B. Standing Ovation announced a broader $34.2 million package, but only the $28.5 million equity portion enters our funding calculation because the rest was non-dilutive capital. Vivici's EIC package receives the same treatment.

Other deals involve crowdfunding, SAFE conversions, share consideration or primary-secondary complications. Whenever the clean equity component could be isolated, we used it. When a source left genuine uncertainty, we kept that uncertainty visible.

The $1.150 billion market figure should therefore be read as a consistent estimate of qualifying financing activity rather than an artificially precise accounting total.

What should we actually take away from alternative protein funding right now?

Alternative protein funding currently looks like a maturing market where plenty of companies can still raise money, but serious scale capital is becoming much more selective.

The breadth is real. We found 91 funded companies, and most appeared only once during the period. This sector still supports a large population of startups rather than a tiny group trading capital among themselves.

The typical financing remains modest. As seen above, the typical round gives a much better idea of normal fundraising than the much higher average.

The biggest checks increasingly follow commercial evidence. Fermentation has benefited most from that shift, with companies such as EVERY, The Protein Brewery, Formo, Vivici and Standing Ovation combining fundraising with production expansion, distribution, regulatory progress or customer demand.

The startup pipeline itself is older than the hype around the sector might suggest. Follow-on financings receive nearly all of the capital, and companies founded from 2020 to 2022 dominate the funded population.

The hardest part of the market appears after Series B. As pointed out above, the drop into Series C is unusually sharp. The problem these companies face by then is broader than raising another venture round: they need to prove that factories, unit economics, regulation and demand can all work together.

Finally, alternative protein does not lack investors. It lacks a deep bench of investors repeatedly leading companies through industrial-scale growth. That distinction goes a long way toward explaining why the market can support dozens of early and mid-stage financings while still producing so few mature private companies.