Aqua Cultured Foods has secured $5.5 million in seed funding to bring its ultra-realistic seafood alternatives to market. The investment round was led by Stray Dog Capital, with participation from H Venture Partners, Aztec Capital Management, and Amplifica Capital.
Existing investors including Supply Change Capital, Big Idea Ventures, HPA, Aera VC, Kingfisher Family Investments, and Swiss Pampa also participated, as did CJ CheilJedang, a South Korea-based global food and bio company.
Aqua will use the funds to equip its new facility, scale up production, bring products to market, add key talent, and expand its roster of restaurant and foodservice outlets for product introductions later this year.
Aqua’s low cost of scaling and path to price parity are among its primary values, thanks to proprietary fermentation methods that use relatively affordable inputs and equipment.
The company recently acquired a food-grade facility that was already built out nearly to its requirements, which it estimates will save more than a million dollars in construction costs.
Additionally, Aqua was recently accepted into the Illinois Office of Business Development’s EDGE program, which provides tax incentives to growing companies, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes over the next 10 years.
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