Lab-grown fish startup raises €7 million

In Germany, lab-grown fish startup Bluu Biosciences has raised €7 million ($8.25 million) to advance its cell-based salmon, trout, and carp, the most-consumed fish in China. 

Manta Ray Ventures, Norrsken VC, Be8, CPT Capital and Lever VC participated in the funding. 

Bluu’s technology is based on work done by co-founder and marine and cell biologist Sebastian Rakers, who has cultivated 80 cell cultures for more than 20 fish. Rakers has been able to make the fish cell lines immortal—eliminating the need to cultivate multiple cell lines to produce meat at large scale. 

“It’s such a strong competitive advantage,” Simon Fabich, co-founder and managing director of Bluu tells TechCrunch. “If you have normal cells that are not immortalized you can only proliferate 20 to 25 times and then you need to start again from another biopsy. With immortalized cells you can grow up to 100,000 times and we can double it every day.”