Mycelium innovator Ecovative has raised $11M in new funding to fuel the "explosive growth" of MyBacon, the mycelium-based meat alternative sold under its spinout company, MyForest Foods.
The round was largely led by existing investors, alongside a $1.7M grant and loan from the Advance Albany County Alliance, and will specifically support the "ongoing scale-up of our MyBacon production", Ecovative founder and CEO Eben Bayer tells Green Queen.
The company has now attracted $156M in investment since 2019. And to date, $82M has been raised into MyForest Foods. This latest capital injection will help the firm expand the production capacity of MyBacon, hire new staff, launch a whole-cut mycelium product, and enter the food service channel. While most alternative protein players have struggled to raise funds over the last couple of years, Ecovative has been an outlier. In 2024, when investment in the industry dropped by 27%, the firm secured $28M, part of which was earmarked for MyBacon's expansion.
"Every dollar is focused on scaling the business and bringing more high-performance mycelium products to market," says Bayer. He notes that Ecovative is creating a "whole new protein category" with AirMycelium, its proprietary tech that grows mushrooms on an industrial scale in vertical farms, allowing it to produce three million sq ft of material annually on one acre of land.
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