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Shiok Meats, the world’s first cell-cultured crustacean company, has fully acquired Gaia Foods. Founded in 2019, Gaia was the first company in Southeast Asia to develop cell-cultured red meat.
Its founders are two scientists, Dr. Vinayaka Srinivas and Dr. Hung Nguyen, who both have decades of experience in stem cell and biotech research.
“We have long admired Shiok Meats for their mission, technology, and strong leadership,” said Srinivas. “This collaboration has all the necessary synergies that will make our respective capabilities even stronger.”
Gaia finished developing its first product, cell-cultured beef slices, in October 2020. The company has been backed by Big Idea Ventures (which also invests in Shiok) and various angel investors.
© Gaia Foods
Growth for Shiok Meats
Shiok Meats has gone from strength to strength, raising $12.6 million in its Series A funding round last September. Last year, it announced a collaboration with IntegriCulture to upscale its production and reduce costs. It was also named as one of the most innovative companies in the Asia Pacific region by Fast Company magazine in 2020.
“The alternative protein space is evolving rapidly, and we are very excited to collaborate and integrate with Gaia Foods,” said Dr. Sandhya Sriram, CEO and Co-founder of Shiok Meats. “With both seafood and red meat on our suite of offerings and the recent fundraise from strategic investors, we are ready to power through to commercialization.”