Tender Foods raises $12M seed round for plant-based whole muscle cuts of beef, pork, chicken

Tender Food (“Tender”), a food technology startup launched just over a year ago, has taken in $12 million in its seed round, to scale production of its plant-based meat products. The round is led by Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital and financing is joined by pre-seed lead investor Rhapsody Venture Partners, actress and renowned animal rights activist Natalie Portman, Safar Partners, Bread and Butter Ventures, MCJ Collective, and food tech specialist investor Unovis.

Alternative protein is one of the fastest growing categories in food and agriculture, but a central challenge to its wider adoption has been replicating the structures and textures of whole muscle cuts from animals. So far it’s all ground meat and nuggets. Based on innovations by engineers at Harvard University, Tender’s technology enables the creation of whole muscle cut products (e.g. chicken breasts, pulled pork, and steaks) that look, taste, and feel like the real thing, with applications from plant-based to cultured meat. Using an elegant process licensed from Harvard, Tender spins plant protein into strands that mimic real meat muscle fibers. In contrast to other plant-based products that imitate processed meat like sausages and burgers, Tender’s results have textures and cooking properties that you can’t tell apart from animal meat, with high protein nutritional profiles but no additives or fillers.