ProFuse Technology Awarded €2.4 Million EIC Grant to Accelerate Cultivated Meat Production

YOKNEAM, Israel, May 8, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ProFuse Technology, a leading developer of enabling technologies for the cultivation of muscle tissue, today announced it has been awarded a €2.4 million grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Transition program. This prestigious grant recognizes ProFuse's innovative technology and its potential to revolutionize the cultivated meat industry.

Selected from a Competitive Pool: ProFuse was chosen for the EIC grant after a rigorous selection process involving hundreds of applicants. This recognition serves as a strong validation of ProFuse's technology and its value proposition within the cultivated meat landscape.

Grant to Fuel Growth and Regulatory Approval: Building on the successful validation of its technology with numerous cultivated meat producers, ProFuse recently launched two key products:  The PROFUSE-S1 media supplement, which accelerates and optimizes cultivated muscle growth, and the PROFUSE-B8 cell line, a unique bovine myoblast cell line that replicates indefinitely without genetic modification. 

The EIC grant will empower ProFuse to advance its muscle cultivation technology. This includes:

• Scaling Up Production: Developing ProFuse's technology to support large-scale cultivated meat production processes.
• Regulatory Pathway: Completing the work required to obtain safety regulation approval for ProFuse's technology.
• Industry Collaboration: Furthering ProFuse's partnerships with cultivated meat companies.

Government Support for Alternative Protein Innovation: Government funding plays a critical role in fostering innovation, particularly in capital-intensive industries like cultivated meat. This €2.4 million grant, awarded to one company, is extraordinary in its size and thus is a good indication for the commitment of the European Union towards supporting the development of the promising alternative proteins sector.

• Dr. Tamar Eigler Hirsh, ProFuse Technology CTO and Co-Founder: "ProFuse's technology, including media supplements and muscle cell-lines, enables significant cost reduction in cultivated meat production, while simultaneously enhancing its nutritional value, texture, and taste. This grant will allow us to further refine our technology to support large-scale cultivated meat production."
• Guy Nevo Michrowski, ProFuse Technology CEO: "Regulatory approval is a critical hurdle for the nascent cultivated meat industry. This grant will be instrumental in our final push to gain regulatory approval for the use of our PROFUSE-Sx media supplements in high-volume production."
• Aviv Oren, Director of Business Engagement and Innovation at the Good Food Institute Israel:  "ProFuse's success in securing the EIC grant underscores the significant role of government stakeholders in advancing CAPEX-intensive industries like alternative proteins that play a critical role in decarbonizing the economy. Alternative proteins are still in their early days, and reaching full potential requires significant investments in R&D and scaling – much as it did it did in the earliest days of EV and renewable energy innovation. As the sector grows and matures, we expect to see continued government support for mass commercialization of alternative proteins products and B2B inputs, like those developed by ProFuse."

About ProFuse Technology

ProFuse Technology specializes in creating solutions for muscle growth in the cultivated meat and life science industries. This includes the development of cell lines and media supplements. Our solutions not only increase yield and shorten production cycles but also lead to a substantial reduction in production costs.

The company actively collaborates with prominent cultivated meat and life-science companies, seamlessly integrating its solutions into their production processes for cultivated meat and in-vitro muscle models.

Established in 2021 under the FRESH START foodtech incubator, the company received investments from leading industry and financial investors. Its technology is based on six years of research carried out at the Tzahor Lab of the Weizmann Institute of Science. In October 2022, ProFuse secured an additional $3 million in seed funding, with Green-Circle, a New York-based foodtech fund, leading the investment.

About The Good Food Institute

The Good Food Institute Israel is a nonprofit think tank working to harness the power of local alternative protein research and innovation to target the world's climate, global health, food security, and biodiversity goals.

As a catalyst for the entire sector, GFI Israel leverages the Israeli entrepreneurial mentality and partners with forward-thinking scientists, businesses, and policymakers to advance research and industry breakthroughs and promote governmental support for alternative proteins.

Contact:
Guy Nevo Michrowski, CEO
ProFuse Technology Ltd.
+972 54 4449314
[email protected]
www.profuse-tech.com

Contact:
Ariella Charny, Director of Marketing & Communication
The Good Food Institute Israel
+972 54 4536837
[email protected]
www.gfi.org.il

SOURCE Profuse Technology