£30m fund launches to support best alternatives to animal products

By Michelle Perrett

- Last updated on GMT

The new fund will help to support plant- and fermentation-based companies
The new fund will help to support plant- and fermentation-based companies

Related tags Supply chain vegan plant based

A new £30m impact fund has been launched to support the growth of the best international successors to animal products.

The fund has been set up Sentient Ventures, which was described as a movement of individuals driven to enable the removal of animals from the supply chain. 

The new fund will provide early growth-stage capital to plant- and fermentation-based companies that have proved their concept and gained significant traction, and are now looking to scale-up production and reach new consumers and markets.

Sentient Ventures brings together Veganuary co-founder Matthew Glover, venture investor Alexandra Clark and former investment banker and founder of MVK Group Manish Karani.

Advised on over 30 investments

They have made and advised over 30 investments into animal-alternative companies to date, with their current portfolio including VFC, LoveRaw, Purezza, Shicken and Libre Foods. 

The group argues that animal agriculture is a major GHG emitter and user of land and other resources, driving multiple crises, including biodiversity loss and species extinction, water pollution and shortages, antimicrobial resistance, the spread of foodborne and zoonotic diseases, and the climate emergency. 

Each investment opportunity is assessed with Sentient Ventures’ in-house proprietary impact assessment tool, which has been developed by environmental expert Tom Chapman. 

Metrics

The methodology can gauge several metrics, including animal lives spared, days of suffering reduced, and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, land use and water pollution. Investments are also aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 

Glover said that it was a 'prime time' to invest in alternative protein companies. 

“Sentient Ventures was born of both passion and frustration: frustration that not enough is being done at a high-level to move to a more sustainable and humane food system, and passion for the novel solutions that are reshaping food production without animals, and the founders behind them,” ​he said. 

“While the world deals with a confluence of crises that are currently impacting global supply chains, we will support the scale-up of the companies pioneering innovative food solutions to enable consumers to make better choices.”

 

Related topics Plant-Based Operations

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1 comment

Pseudo science and gullible investors.

Posted by Paul Cheale,

Why is it that it is assumed necessary to attack meat eating and livestock production to promote a product which has been a staple of countless generations? Wild allegations of cruelty being necessary
to farm livestock is so patently obviously wrong. Is this ignorance or shear spite born more out of emotion than fact? Failure to understand the whole picture of the importance which animals play in the health and wealth of our nation is pitiful. The grazing of land not suitable for crops but ideal for cattle and sheep is proper use of a valuable resource which not only revitalises the land but produces leather and wool and by products used in throughout industry. That so much effort is made to imitate the taste and appeal of the product with which they do not want to be associated with is laughable. By all means produce something to make a profit but to do so much gobbledegook is perhaps an indication of the ethics of those who promote fake meat. If their produce is any good let it stand on it's feet without the need to slander a proper healthy one.

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