Published in Company Updates
Believer Meats Closes After Running Out of Money
An Israeli-founded lab-grown meat startup has shut down after funding problems and rising costs made it impossible to continue.
Martina Osmak
Director of Marketing
Food Tech Startup Comes to an End
Believer Meats, a startup that made meat from animal cells, has stopped all its operations. The company said it could no longer continue because it ran out of money.
The announcement came from Anne Schubert, the company’s global HR leader, in a post on LinkedIn. She said the decision was very difficult and praised the team for what they built over the past two years.
Believer Meats did not give more details and did not reply to media questions.
What Was Believer Meats?
Believer Meats was a biotechnology company founded in Israel. It was previously known as Future Meat Technologies. The company worked in both Israel and the United States.
The company produced:
Cultivated chicken
Cultivated lamb
Cultivated beef
These products were grown from animal cells in special tanks called bioreactors.
How Lab-Grown Meat Works (In Simple Terms)
Believer Meats used a scientific process that:
Takes a small number of animal cells
Grows them in a controlled environment
Mixes them with plant-based ingredients
According to the company, the final product:
Looks and tastes like regular meat
Has no antibiotics
Has no artificial colors or preservatives
Is not genetically modified
Big Factory, Big Costs
Earlier this year, Believer Meats finished building a very large production plant in North Carolina, USA. The company said it was the world’s first large-scale facility for cultivated meat.
The factory was designed to produce:
About 12,000 metric tons of cultivated chicken per year
This factory was a major step toward selling lab-grown meat to the public. In fact, Believer Meats became the first non-US company to get approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to sell cultivated chicken in the United States.
But building and running such a factory is extremely expensive.
Legal Trouble and Financial Pressure
The company’s financial problems became worse when it faced a lawsuit in the US. A construction partner claimed Believer Meats owed about $34 million in unpaid bills related to the North Carolina facility.
At the same time:
Operating costs stayed very high
New investment became harder to secure
Food tech expert Tammy Meiron explained that creating a whole new industry takes time and a lot of money. She said the market may simply not be ready yet.
Investor Mood Has Changed
Believer Meats raised a total of $390 million from investors. In 2021, it made headlines by raising $347 million in a single funding round, the largest ever in the cultivated meat industry at the time.
Major investors included:
ADM Ventures
Tyson Foods
S2G Ventures
BitsXBites
However, the situation for startups has changed since then.
According to industry experts:
Investment in food tech has dropped sharply since 2021
Interest rates are higher
Investors are now more careful and less optimistic
This made it much harder for Believer Meats to keep funding its expensive operations.
What This Means for the Cultivated Meat Industry
Believer Meats was seen as a leader in lab-grown meat, especially because it reached the mass-production stage. Its shutdown is a setback for the industry.
Still, experts say this does not mean cultivated meat is finished.
“The need is still there,” said Meiron. “The timing just isn’t right.”
Many believe the technology will return stronger in the future, once costs are lower and supporting technologies improve.
Final Thoughts
Believer Meats started as a groundbreaking Israeli innovation with global ambition. It reached major scientific and regulatory milestones but could not survive the financial reality of scaling up too fast in a difficult market.
While this chapter has closed, the idea behind lab-grown meat is still alive — waiting for the right moment to succeed.