Melt&Marble raises 750,000 euros seed round to make fats for plant-based food

Melt&Marble said it has raised a seed round of €750,000 led by Nordic FoodTech VC to kickstart the company’s new mission of providing delicious and sustainable fats for plant-based foods.

Other investors include Paulig’s venture arm PINC, Purple Orange Ventures, and Chalmers Ventures, it said.

There is still a taste gap between plant-based and animal-based meats, said Melt&Marble who aims to erase this gap by supplying plant-based meats with a key component: delicious animal fat, without the animal.

Melt&Marble, which was earlier called Biopetrolia, uses precision fermentation to produce its fats. By engineering the metabolism of yeasts, the team can mimic any fat structure as well as create completely new and better fats. Due to this flexibility, Melt&Marble’s technology can produce tailored fats for a range of plant-based products.

“Fat is key to the experience of eating a delicious piece of meat.”

Anastasia Krivoruchko, founder and CEO of Melt&Marble

“Because the properties of plant-based fats are different from those of animal fats, the experience of eating many plant-based meats has so far been subpar compared to the real thing. This is something we want to address. With our technology, we can create fats that are identical to animal fats, or even better! This could become a booster for the entire industry,” she said.

“With the rate that plant-based meat is growing at, there won’t be enough coconut trees to sustain the demand”, explains Lauri Reuter, partner at Nordic FoodTech VC. “If we are to replace a meaningful part of animal production with plant-based meats, we need a more sustainable and scalable source for fats. If there is one team that can make it happen, it is Melt&Marble. They have spent over ten years in the field and have developed an unmatched technology platform to create an animal-mimicking fat without the animal.”