It wasn’t way back that cultivated meat was awash with capital, with traders scrambling to get into oversubscribed funding rounds. At its peak, virtually $1bn was invested in a single 12 months. A daring transfer, provided that at that time, in 2021, cultivated meat had acquired only a few regulatory inexperienced lights; most nations had but to deem it secure for consumption.
Quick ahead to at this time, and the panorama feels markedly completely different. Since 2021, funding in cultivated meat has plummeted. On the upside for cell-based innovators, regulatory approvals have expanded, and shoppers have lastly been in a position to attempt merchandise as soon as confined to science fiction: actual meat, produced with out slaughter.
And but, regardless of these advances, the sector is beneath pressure. Cultivated meat gamers are folding, making the troublesome choice to stop operations altogether. Amid a cell-based shakeout, who’s closing their doorways and why?
Believer Meats
- Headquarters: Chicago, US
- Years working: 2018-2025
- Flagship know-how: Cultivated hen
- Regulatory approval? Sure, in US
Israeli-founded Believer Meats, previously Future Meat Applied sciences, introduced it was shutting up store in late 2025. The corporate had made headway on its path to commercialisation, first transferring from Israel to the US earlier than organising a producing facility in North Carolina able to producing 12,000 tonnes of cultivated hen per 12 months. Believer made headlines by changing into the primary international firm to safe US regulatory approval for a cultivated meat product.
Taking to social media, the corporate’s international VP of expertise and human assets Anne Schubert stated the result was “not what any of us hoped for”. No additional clarification was given, however rumours of economic struggles and an try and safe eleventh-hour funding, adopted by mass layoffs, have been reported by AgFunder Information.
Meatable
- Headquarters: Delft, Netherlands
- Years working: 2018-2025
- Flagship know-how: Cultivated pork
- Regulatory approval? No
Dutch cultivated pork maker Meatable made the choice to stop operations in late 2025. The information was introduced by shareholder Agronomics, which defined the corporate was unable to safe funding to proceed operations. Simply months prior, Meatable acquired Unusual Bio’s cultivated meat platform, which it had hoped would diversify its portfolio past pork and beef, into lamb and hen.
CellRev
- Headquarters: Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
- Years working: 2018-2025
- Flagship know-how: Media for cell manufacturing
- Regulatory approval? N/A
Newcastle College spin-out CellRev, quick for CellulaREvolution, didn’t make its personal cultivated meat merchandise. As a substitute, it developed proprietary media components for cell manufacturing, together with cultivated meat. In August 2025, CEO Chris Inexperienced revealed the corporate can be shutting up store. Though happy with CellRev’s achievements – the corporate developed the primary steady adherent cell manufacturing platform with proof of 60 days of steady culturing – he acknowledged CellRev couldn’t ship business milestones in time to safe Sequence A funding.
Upstream Meals
- Headquarters: Wageningen, Netherlands
- Years working: 2022-2025
- Flagship know-how: Cultivated fish fats
- Regulatory approval? No
Upstream Meals’ technique was to develop cultivated fish fats, beginning with salmon, to enhance the style of plant-based seafood. However after simply three years, CEO Kianti Figler referred to as it a day. “Bringing a cultivated product to the market isn’t any straightforward feat,” she stated in a web based submit mid-2025. “We’re constructing an business from scratch, fully rethinking our meals system from the bottom up, and we can’t deny that there are vital boundaries to entry.” In the end, the choice to wind up operations was a monetary one: “We want extra capital than we’re presently in a position to elevate.”
SCiFi Meals
- Headquarters: San Francisco, US
- Years working: 2019-2024
- Flagship know-how: Hybrid cultivated beef and plant protein burger
- Regulatory approval? No
Initially based as Artemys Meals, SciFi Meals was taking a hybrid strategy to cultivated meat. The Californian firm was engaged on a burger – the “SCiFi Burger” – made out of a mix of cultivated beef and plant proteins, however in mid-2024 introduced it was calling it a day. “Sadly, on this funding atmosphere, we couldn’t elevate the capital that we wanted to commercialise the SciFi burger, and SCiFi Meals ran out of time,” famous its founders in a press release.
SCiFi Meals’ cell traces and development media have been acquired by different proteins advocate the Good Meals Institute, and thru a partnership with Tufts College has made them out there for public use. It’s hoped the transfer can save academia and business “tens of millions”, and take away main boundaries to entry for brand new innovators. It marks the primary time suspension-adapted bovine cell traces might be out there for cultivated meat researchers all over the world.
Consolidation in cultivated
A particular point out should go to consolidation within the cultivated meat and seafood sector, a development that continues to develop amid the cultivated shakeout. Some have already been talked about, notably Meatable’s acquisition of Unusual Bio’s cultivated meat platform and the Good Meals Institute’s buyout of SCiFi Meals’ cell traces and development media.
In 2024, cultivated meat firm Umami Bioworks introduced a merger with cell-based seafood operator Shiok Meats in Singapore, and in 2025, French lab-grown poultry start-up Gourmey (finest identified for its cultivated foie gras) merged with one other French operator, Important Meat. The brand new entity is called Parima.
Because the sector continues to slim down, it’s changing into clearer which enterprise fashions can stand up to the stress of lengthy growth timelines, excessive capital calls for, and an unsure funding atmosphere. Whether or not by way of shutdowns, pivots, or mergers, firms are reassessing their paths in a quickly altering panorama. We’ll be watching carefully to see which gamers adapt, consolidate, or finally discover a sustainable route ahead in cultivated meat’s subsequent chapter.
