Jimi Biotech Develops China’s First 100% Cultivated Chicken Meat
Jimi Biotech, a cultivated meat company based in Hangzhou, China announced the development of China’s first cultivated chicken meat made without plant scaffolding.
The company also disclosed another round of funding. The investment was made by Shiwei Capital and was announced only three months after Jimi Biotech secured funds in an angel round.
This new financing round will be used for R&D and the construction of a small pilot plant to implement the company’s recent achievements: reducing growth media costs and building an R&D platform.
A partner at Shiwei Capital, Weichang Jiang said: “Although only three months have passed since the last round of funding, Jimi Biotech has still made significant technological breakthroughs. In addition to the rapid progress in core areas such as cell lines and culture media, we believe that Jimi Biotech’s deep integration of automation and AI into the research and development also reflects the founder’s emphasis on continuously improving research and development efficiency.”
Jimi Biotech’s 100% cultivated chicken stands out among other cultivated meat start-ups as it doesn’t use plant scaffolding in its development. It is made using a 100% cultivated prototype with cells from a young rooster. Jimi’s CEO, Zhehou Cao believes that cultivated meat products containing plant scaffolding cannot convince meat-loving consumers. Arguing that 100% cell-based meat is closer to the taste and nutrition of traditional slaughter meat, and will be more easily accepted by consumers.
About Jimi Biotech
Jimi Biotech was established in August 2021, dedicated to the development of cultivated meat, and is currently located in Hangzhou. Jimi Biotech hopes to create new forms of meat through new technology. Jimi’s goal is to reduce public health, food safety, environmental pollution and animal welfare problems caused by industrial animal farming, and propel human beings to a future with sustainable and slaughter-free protein production chain. In December 2021, Jimi released the first ever cultivated beef in China.
During 2022, Jimi has achieved significant progress in the R&D of cultivated meat. Jimi has successfully developed not only serum free, but also animal-component free culture media, which works nearly as well or even better than fetal bovine serum (FBS). Jimi has also lowered the media cost for more than 20 times to around 100 RMB per liter. In addition, Jimi has developed a media recycling system, where some microorganisms are processed and used to replace expensive media components, while waste media can be recycled to culture these microorganisms.
