Dutch cultivated pork maker Meatable is winding down its operations after failing to secure funding, its shareholder has announced.
Days after Israel’s Believer Meats announced it had ceased operations, another leading cultivated meat company has abruptly shut down.
Dutch firm Meatable, which had been highly active this year in its efforts to commercialise, is winding down and terminating all operations.
The announcement was made by Agronomics, an investor in the startup, which noted that Meatable “was unable to obtain continued funding from either existing shareholders or from new investors”.
“While this outcome is disappointing, we believe the decision has been taken responsibly and in the best interests of all stakeholders,” said Jim Mellon, executive chair of Agronomics.
Meatable was progressing on multiple fronts
Founded in 2018 by Krijn de Nood, Daan Luining, and Mark Kotter, Meatable had developed a process that leverages pluripotent stem cells (PSCs), which – unlike immortalised cell lines that need to be altered to multiply indefinitely – have the natural ability to continue multiplying, and do so rapidly.
This is coupled with a perfusion process that enables a continuous cycle to generate very high cell densities and produce fully differentiated muscle and fat cells in just four days, the fastest of any startup in the industry.
It has been operating out of a facility in Leiden, which houses 200-litre bioreactors (with the potential of expanding to 500 litres). It has previously also partnered with Singapore’s ESCO Aster, the world’s first approved contract manufacturing facility for cultivated meat, and plant protein manufacturer Love Handle.
And this year, Meatable teamed up with TruMeat, a firm focused on the industrialisation of cultivated meat tech, to construct what it claimed would be Singapore’s first cultivated meat factory capable of cost-competitive production.
This came amid its ongoing pursuit of regulatory clearance in multiple geographies, starting with Singapore, which it planned to use as a springboard for approval in other countries. In a wide-ranging interview with Green Queen last year, then-CEO Jeff Tripician said he was expecting the green light in Singapore by Q1 2025, but it is still awaiting a decision.
Named one of Time magazine’s best inventions of 2024, the firm is also part of the UK’s cultivated meat regulatory sandbox, and was the first to host a public tasting for these proteins in the EU.
Meatable was simultaneously expanding its IP portfolio via the acquisition of UK-based Uncommon Bio’s cultivated meat platform and key staff, after the latter shifted focus from cultivated meat to therapeutics. Additionally, it diversified beyond food through a partnership with fellow Dutch firm Pelagen, which specialises in cell-based leather.
Lack of investment in cultivated meat fuels uncertainty
To date, Meatable has secured $95M from investors, and according to Tripician, it was looking to raise around $35M in a Series C round this year.
But funding has been hard to come by for cultivated meat over the past couple of years. Startups in this segment only received $36M in the first nine months of 2025. In contrast, this technology attracted $139M in 2024, itself a 40% decline from the previous year.
For a sector that cannot generate revenue without regulatory approval, often a lengthy and expensive process, and requires a healthy amount of capital to overcome cost and scalability challenges, the lack of interest from investors has sounded the death knell for many firms.
Believer Meats closed down months after securing full approval in the US and opening the world’s largest cultivated meat factory. UK-based CellRev also called it quits this year, as did another Dutch startup, Upstream Foods.
Meatable is the latest to join that list, having been subject to a host of “foreseeable and unforeseeable risks and uncertainties” throughout 2025, according to Agronomics. That has impacted the company’s ability to “execute its strategy and deliver its expected performance”,
“Following a thorough review of strategic options, the board and shareholders have concluded that an orderly wind-down of the business is the most appropriate course of action. The winding-up of Meatable will be conducted in accordance with the applicable statutory liquidation procedures,” Agronomics said.
To date, it had invested £7.9M ($10.5M) in the startup, which was carried at £11.9M ($15.9M) prior to this news, and will now be written off to zero. “Agronomics continues to actively manage its portfolio and remains focused on supporting its wider portfolio of businesses with strong long-term growth potential,” said Mellon.
At the time of writing, Meatable did not respond to Green Queen’s request for comment.
The post Dutch Cultivated Meat Startup Meatable Shuts Down Amid Fundraising Struggles appeared first on Green Queen.
This post was originally published on Green Queen.