December 8, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Leading fermentation food tech platform The EVERY Company has closed on an oversubscribed $175 million Series C on its way to pioneering a global shift to animal-free protein. 

This round, which brings funding for the company to $233 million, was co-led by new investor McWin and existing investor Rage Capital. Others who participated include Temasek, Grosvenor’s Wheatsheaf Group, and TO Ventures, and Prosus Ventures, whose contribution marked its first investment in synthetic biology.

The EVERY Company originally launched in 2014 under the name Clara Foods, raising $1.7 million in Seed funding from David Friedberg, Gary Hirshberg, Ali and Hadi Partovi, Scott Banister, and SOS Ventures in July 2015.

Earlier this year the company rebranded as The EVERY Company to better express its vision of bringing animal-free protein to “everyone, everywhere”. 

Headquartered in San Francisco, EVERY™ leverages precision fermentation to produce hyper-functional and one-to-one replacement proteins from microorganisms.

“It’s rare for a company to credibly claim revolutionizing a century-old industry. Arturo and the team at EVERY™ are doing just that,” said Gabriel Ruimy, managing partner, Rage Capital. “By leveraging precision fermentation technologies, EVERY™ is bringing ingredient synthesis from science fiction to supermarket aisles, starting with egg proteins and enzymes.

Last year the company launched the world’s first animal-free pepsin with Ingredion, a Fortune 500 ingredients company. And more recently, it released the world’s first animal-free egg protein. Then, in November, EVERY™ made its retail debut through a limited time partnership with leading national cold-pressed juice brand Pressed, to serve the first nature-equivalent, animal-free protein smoothie directly to consumers. 

This pioneering, disruptive food technology led to this round being heavily oversubscribed due to strong investor interest.

“The global demand for alternative proteins has grown substantially, but the infrastructure needed to produce the necessary ingredients has yet to catch up. EVERY’s platform is a big step towards filling that gap,” said Katrin Burt, managing partner, Grosvenor’s Wheatsheaf Group.

With the capital from this round, EVERY plans to scale production, commercialize a robust pipeline of animal-free proteins on a national level, and expand into a broad array of new food applications while continuing to grow its production production by mining the egg proteome for novel, hyper-functional proteins.

Henry McGovern, founder of McWin Food Ecosystem Fund and AmRest, which operates over 2,300 restaurants globally, commented, “The restaurant industry is one of the early adopters of new food technologies and their introduction to the consumer. Given our deep roots in restaurants and as a prolific investor in the leading alternative protein companies, McWin is uniquely equipped to support EVERY’s ambitious plans to bring its products to menus worldwide. Eggs are not only ubiquitous, but they are also incredibly difficult to replace; we see tremendous potential in EVERY’s revolutionary technology.”

As consumer demands shift, and welfare and environmental concerns remain connected to animal-based agriculture, Arturo Elizondo, CEO and founder of The EVERY Company stated that it is an ideal moment in time to be a B2B ingredients platform.

“As the world’s biggest food companies work to evolve their product offerings into the 21st century by driving for cleaner, kinder, and more sustainable labels, the options available are few and far between,” said Elizondo.

“We at EVERY™ are perfectly positioned to enable the world’s largest and smallest food companies to transition to an animal-free future –– without compromises,” he continued. “Now, our major objective is to scale the platform to make good on our promise to bring our proteins to everyone, everywhere. This new injection of capital will allow us to do just that.”

– Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.