Steakholder Foods – a deep-tech company that develops complex cultured meat using advanced 3D printing technologies – has announced its participation in a strategic investment round in Wilk Technologies.
The financing round is led by Danone and includes participation from Central Bottling Company, also known as Coca-Cola Israel. According to The Times Israel, Danone Manifesto Ventures, the corporate venture arm of the French food giant, has funded $2 million out of the $3.5 million investment.
A Danone spokesperson told FoodBev:
“As the global leader in our categories, we are always exploring new and emerging science-led technologies. Wilk’s expertise is relevant to our dairy, plant-based and specialised nutrition offerings, and while it is early days, we believe their work in this area can contribute to our research, innovation and product development.”
Founded in 2020, Wilk holds a number of patent applications on laboratory production processes that replicate the milk-producing cells of humans and other mammals in order to create 100% real milk and milk components in a laboratory environment.
Steakholder Foods will purchase ordinary shares of Wilk for $450,000 at a 15% discount below their 45-day average closing price, resulting in a 2.5% ownership stake in Wilk. Additionally, Steakholder Foods said it aims to identify business opportunities with Wilk, including strategic cooperation on its proprietary biology and printing technologies.
Arik Kaufman, CEO of Steakholder Foods, commented: “We’re extremely excited to announce our strategic collaboration with Wilk. As part of our commitment to sustainable foods solutions, we see this collaboration as another step in expanding Steakholder Foods’ growing contribution to the food-tech ecosystem and a strategic step in the optimisation of our investment and holding structure.”
