Fish from cell cultures: Osborne Clarke advises BLUU Seafood on Series A financing

Osborne Clarke has advised food biotech start-up BLUU Seafood on its successful EUR 16 million Series A funding round. 

Putting an end to overfishing and at the same time making fish meat available that is uncontaminated by heavy metals, antibiotics or microplastics: These are the goals that the food biotech start-up BLUU Seafood, originally founded in 2020 as Bluu Biosciences in Berlin, is pursuing with its cellular fish products. Using stem cell technology, cells of selected fish species are cultivated in the laboratory. Enriched with vegetable proteins, the start-up produces fish fingers and balls based on this cellular mass. 

Last summer, BLUU Seafood was the first European company to introduce in-vitro fish products developed to market maturity. In 2024, the company expects to receive approval in Singapore and, according to its own information, the start-up is also in the approval process in the USA. An application for approval in Europe is to follow.

The now completed Series A financing round of EUR 16 million is led by Sparkfood, an investor specialising in innovative food solutions, and LBBW Venture Capital. Other backers include the Oetker Group with its venture capital company Be8, Delivery Hero Ventures, Innovationsstarter Fonds Hamburg, a subsidiary of Hamburgische Investitions- und Förderbank, and the Asian investor SeaX Ventures. 

With the fresh capital, the company will on the one hand focus on the approval processes of its products. Another focus will be the expansion of its research work: With the planned opening of a production facility in Hamburg in autumn 2023, in which fish cells will be cultivated in fermenters with a capacity of up to 500 litres, BLUU Seafood will move from the laboratory phase to pilot production.

“Together with our strong international investors, we will be able to launch the next stage of development and bring our first products to market,” said Dr Sebastian Rakers, co-founder of BLUU Seafood.

The Osborne Clarke team advising BLUU Seafood, led by Till-Manuel Saur, consisted of Giovanni Alexandrov, Philipp Niedermeyer (all Corporate / VC), Dr Andrea Schmoll (IP), Dr Robert Rentsch, Kamissa Kruse (both Employment), Susanne Schricker and Manuel Schuster (both Antitrust).