South Korean Startup Raises $6M in Pre-Series A for Cultivated Meat Powder

Simple Planet’s ₩8M ($6M) pre-Series A funding round saw participation from POSCO Technology Investment, DCP Private Equity, Hyundai Technology Investment, Prologue Ventures, Pathfinder H, and Samho Green Investment, among others.

The latest capital injection brought the South Korean startup’s total financing to ₩10B ($7.5M), after a previous ₩2B ($1.5M) round led by tofu giant Pulmuone. It will help accelerate its R&D efforts to produce ingredients like powders and fats for cultivated meat, facilitating the optimisation of its manufacturing processes, its path to regulatory approvals, and overseas expansion.

“Despite the challenging investment climate, our pre-Series funding round was overbooked,” said Simple Planet co-founder and CEO Il Doo Jeong. “We are in the process of establishing a GMP [good manufacturing practices] facility for the mass production of cell-cultured food ingredients.”