Brief: Vow lands $49.2m ahead of its cultivated quail launch in Singapore restaurants

• Australian cultivated meat company Vow has secured $49.2 million in Series A funding to bring cultivated quail to Singapore.
• PeakBridge participated in the round alongside Blackbird, Prosperity7 Ventures, Toyota Ventures, Square Peg, Grok Ventures, Cavallo Ventures, Tenacious Ventures, HostPlus Super LP, NGS Super, and Pavilion Capital.
• The new funding will enable more product development as well as manufacturing expansion and hiring.

Why it matters:

Vow says its Series A “marks an industry record for a Series A raise in the cultured meat industry.”

The large fundraise is also significant given the larger downturn in tech investment and the broader economic climate overall.

Vow’s approach to cultivated meat is somewhat unique, too. Instead of just replicating beef, chicken, and pork products, Vow focuses on more “exotic” options. The company has named-dropped alpaca and kangaroo in the past alongside more common animals such as rabbit and goat.

“When Vow was founded, we knew to change the way billions eat we had to do more than recreate what we know,” CEO and cofounder George Peppou said in a statement. “By inventing new meats that are tastier, more nutritious, and serve functions traditional meats can’t, we can have an enormous impact.”

To that end, Vow will introduce a quail product called Morsel in Singapore restaurants “in the coming months.” Singapore is currently the only place in the world to approve the sale of cultivated meat. 

According to an interview with TechCrunch, Vow will position Morsel on restaurant menus not as quail but as an entirely new type of meat.

Aside from regulatory approval, the cost of scaling is one of the biggest concerns for cultivated meat companies right now. In fact, there is heated debate over whether the sector can overcome those cost issues.

For its part, Vow opened its Factory 1 earlier this year. It plans to launch an even bigger facility, Factory 2, in 2024.