Brief: Singapore’s Next Gen breaks plant-based seed round record with $10m raise

• Singapore plant-based protein company Next Gen Foods has raised $10 million in seed funding.
• The deal breaks global records for the largest seed round by a plant-based startup.
• Big-name investors including Singapore state fund Temasek, K3 Ventures, the Singapore Economic Development Board‘s New Ventures, German retailer METRO’s NX Foods, FEBE Ventures, and Blue Horizon contributed to the round.
• Next Gen will use the funds to launch its first brand, TiNDLE, in Singapore and other Asian cities. TiNDLE will offer a variety of plant-based ‘chicken’ products.
• The startup will also hire its first US employee, fund further research of plant-based products, and get on track for a Series A within the next two years.

Why it matters:

The plant-based protein industry is expected to become a $85 billion market by 2030, according to UBS.

VC firm AgFunder places plant-based proteins in its ‘Innovative Food’ category, which in 2020 raised double the amount of investment it received in 2019 to $2.3 billion. This was 9% of the total $26.1 billion invested in foodtech and agtech startups in 2020, according to the firm’s research. [Disclosure: AgFunder is AFN‘s parent company.]

AgFunder expects both totals to increase as more 2020 deals come to light, taking Innovative Food investment to over $2.6 billion across 360 deals and total agrifoodtech investment to $31 billion for the year.

Demand for plant-based products in Asia is predicted to increase over 200% in the next 5 years, according to DuPont N&B. According to Technavio, 78% of APAC consumers say that plant-based meat alternatives are here to stay, projecting the market will be worth $12.75 billion by 2030.