Dutch-Belgian startup Those Vegan Cowboys has raised €6.25M ($7.3M) to scale up its cow-free dairy protein. It’s eyeing a 2026 US launch, having secured regulatory clearance.
Those Vegan Cowboys has taken a major step towards bringing its animal-free cheeses to the market, successfully closing its first fundraising round.
The food tech startup has secured €6.25M ($7.3M) to scale up and commercialise its precision-fermented casein protein. The effort was led by Pieter Geelen, founder of mapping tech pioneer TomTom.
The round also involved several impact-driven entrepreneurs, like ProductHero founder Wouter Veenboer, and two dairy majors, including Dutch cheese giant Westland Kaas.
“When animal-free and plant-based become the norm, the future of food looks incredibly promising. This funding round is a powerful step in that direction,” said Jaap Korteweg, who co-founded the startup with Niko Koffeman a year after they sold their plant-based meat brand, The Vegetarian Butcher.
Those Vegan Cowboys will now kick off a crowdfunding round in early 2026 to give consumers a chance to invest in the startup on the same terms.
Dairy industry takes a stake in cow-free casein
Precision fermentation involves inserting a specific DNA sequence into microbes to instruct them to produce desired molecules when fermented. Those Vegan Cowboys uses the tech to produce casein, the main protein group found in dairy.
Casein is crucial to the taste and functional attributes of dairy products like cheese – it’s what makes hard cheeses melt and stretch when they’re heated, allowing water and fat to emulsify and deliver the desired mouthfeel.
It represents a $2.7B market, but comes from a highly emissive, water-guzzling, land-hungry industry. Those Vegan Cowboys’s recombinant version requires just a fifth of the land and water, with up to 95% lower carbon emissions and no methane emissions. This can be mixed with plant-based ingredients to form a variety of dairy alternatives.
The company claims its microbial protein outperforms conventional casein on functionality too, stretching five times more and at a lower melting point. It also enables more efficient and cost-effective production of cheese, yoghurt, and even chocolate in the long term.
Plus, when cheesemakers replace animal fats with specific plant-based ones, they can do away with saturated fats, lactose, and cholesterol. It’s why Those Vegan Cowboys has attracted interest from the dairy sector.
In January, it began working with German dairy giant Hochland Group to test its recombinant casein in a variety of hard and soft cheeses on a larger scale. Now, it has welcomed Westland Kaas as an investor.
“We have always combined tradition with technology,” said Westland Kaas CFO Frank Fischer. “We continue to invest in innovation to reinvent cheese for future generations. Our investment in Those Vegan Cowboys reflects our commitment to open innovation and next-generation food technologies.”
Those Vegan Cowboys cleared to sell in US, will host tastings in Netherlands
In an interview with Green Queen in January, Those Vegan Cowboys CEO Hille van der Kaa had outlined plans to raise €15M in funding. However, the investment landscape for alternative proteins has been dire recently, and while fermentation bucked the trend last year, total funding for this category has receded in 2025.
With the fresh capital, Those Vegan Cowboys is gearing up to launch its casein. It’s already working with 10 industry partners on a range of applications for its casein, and has self-affirmed the ingredient as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) in the US.
The self-determined GRAS provision allows companies to sell novel food ingredients without formal review from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but is set to be scrapped next year. In response, many companies are vying to notify the FDA of their GRAS status to receive a ‘no questions’ letter. Those Vegan Cowboys is pursuing this too.
In parallel, the startup will begin public tastings with consumers in the Netherlands, which has become the first EU country to approve such events for precision-fermented foods before they’re cleared for sale.
The capital injection extends the company’s runway for the next two years. “This is where sustainability, technology and industry come together,” said van der Kaa. “Our partners recognise that animal-free casein is no longer a distant vision, but ready for commercial application. This investment allows us to move from development to market entry.”
Reflecting on his investment, Veenboer said: “This has the potential to be a major breakthrough/ As livestock farming continues to industrialise, the need to relieve the dependency on animals becomes more urgent. Cheese is one of the products consumers miss most when they reduce dairy.”
California-based New Culture is the only active startup with full FDA approval to sell cow-free casein, and Those Vegan Cowboys will hope to join it soon. Others innovating with precision-fermented casein include Standing Ovation, Fooditive Group, and Eden Brew.
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