The laboratory-grown “meat” industry faces significant challenges securing the funding necessary to sustain itself. Industry experts claim they need substantial government assistance to survive; with various sectors within agrifood tech seeing a steep decline in investments since early 2022, and private capital for lab meat almost vanishing.
According to preliminary data from AgFunder, funding in the lab meat sector peaked at $989 million in 2021, decreased to $807 million in 2022, and then sharply dropped by 78 percent to just $177 million in 2023.
The decline in funding has prompted many startups to reduce staff, consolidate operations, or, in some cases, cease operations altogether.
Robert Jones, Vice President of Global Public Affairs at Mosa Meat, warns that “[t]here’s a valley of death we’re not going to cross as an industry without a massive infusion of public investment”—referencing the €60 million ($66 million) allocated by the Dutch government in 2022 as a model.
With the economic case for lab meat deteriorating rapidly, the environmental case for it is also unraveling. Recent studies suggest that—far from being a green alternative to traditional, farm-reared meat—so-called “cultivated meat” produces up to 25 times more CO2.
Lab meat also comes with a range of potential health issues, being a product of “immortalized cell lines” that replicate in perpetuity, like cancer.
