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#4 Cell cultured chocolate startup raises $4 million

In Davis, a lab-grown chocolate startup has raised $4 million to advance its technology, which is aimed at addressing the negative environmental and labor impacts of traditional cocoa production. Agronomics, a listed company focused on cellular agriculture, led the seed round in California Cultured with an investment of $2.2 million.

California Cultured aims to use cocoa cell cultures to produce valuable cocoa products, such as cocoa powder, chocolate, cocoa butter and flavanols. Cell-culture technology veterans Alan Perlstein and Harrison Yoon founded the company to address the need for more ethical and environmentally friendly methods of producing these ingredients. Global cocoa supply chains are known to contribute to deforestation and employ forced labor.

“[California Cultured’s] technology should support stabilizing production of cocoa in the future, and has the potential to enable future chocolate demand to be met,” says Jim Mellon, Non-executive Director of Agronomics.

More on the story, here.