Funding Alert

Brown Foods bags $2.36 million in funding from Y Combinator and others

• ByStartupStory     |    June 11, 2022

Brown Foods, a cell cultured milk platform, has raised $2.36 million in seed funding from Y Combinator, AgFunder, SRI Capital, Amino Capital, Collaborative Fund, and angel investors including Kunal Shah. The funds will be used to expand operations and accelerate product development by the startup. 

Brown Foods, based in the United States and India, was founded in 2021 by IIT-Delhi alumni Sohail Gupta, Abhijeet Kapoor, and Bhavna Tandon. It sells lab-based animal-free milk under the brand ‘Unreal Milk.’ 

According to the startup, its product is created using mammalian cell culture technology. It claims that its product is ‘exactly identical’ to cow’s milk in terms of nutritional profile, taste, and texture, and that it can be made into butter, cheese, and ice cream. 

The startup intends to disrupt the $700 billion traditional dairy market as it begins the process of scaling up and eventually bringing its Unreal milk product to market. 

Brown Foods estimates that its process reduces milk’s carbon footprint by up to 90%. This is no small feat, given that the dairy sector accounts for 4% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, while livestock emissions account for 14.5 percent. 

India is the world’s largest milk producer, accounting for 23% of global milk production, and the dairy industry in India is expected to grow to $355 billion by 2025.

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