The Star Malaysia - StarBiz

S’pore start-up raises Us$10mil, gears up for plant-based chicken brand

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SINGAPORE: Local food tech start-up Next Gen has raised Us$10mil (S$13.2mil) in its recent financing round, as it gears up to launch its alternativ­e chicken product.

Among its investors are Temasek, the Economic Developmen­t Board’s New Ventures arm, Singapore-based tech venture capital firm K3 Ventures and Zurich-headquarte­red food tech venture fund Blue Horizon, Next Gen said in a statement yesterday.

This follows its earlier founder capitalisa­tion of Us$2.2mil which it launched last October.

The financing interest exceeded the firm’s target of Us$7mil, said Next Gen co-founder and chief executive Timo Recker, who sees it as a strong validation of the start-ups team, technology and business model.

“Our investment success is thanks to support from all our investors, K3 Ventures in particular, which has a track record of being early backers of successful startups such as Grab and Bytedance,” he added.

The funding will be used for the global launch of its plant-based chicken brand, expansion into additional Asian cities and continued research and developmen­t of new plant-based products.

The start-up also aims to expand to Europe and the United States in the next two years, said Next Gen co-founder and chief operating officer Andre Menezes.

“We are already laying the groundwork for the United States, including recruiting a growth director, who will build a network of distributo­rs, restaurant­s, and chefs,” Menezes added.

Its first offering, which looks to reproduce the taste and versatilit­y of chicken thigh, was created in partnershi­p with chefs, and is free of geneticall­y modified organisms and cholestero­l, the start-up said.

The product would be available from outlets such as burger joint Three Buns and Chinese restaurant Empress.

“We are already laying the groundwork for the United States.” Andre Menezes

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