Key Takeaways
- • Ginkgo Bioworks, a unicorn bioengineering firm valued at $1.38 billion in 2017, spun off Motif Ingredients with a $90 million Series A funding round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, whose board includes Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and Richard Branson.
- • Motif Ingredients will leverage Ginkgo's DNA synthesis and fermentation technology to produce customizable food ingredients—including meat and dairy flavor/texture analogs—by engineering yeast cells to generate target compounds through fermentation rather than traditional sourcing methods.
- • The company positions itself as a B2B ingredient supplier to plant-based food manufacturers rather than a direct consumer brand, targeting companies that lack in-house manufacturing capability for specialized ingredients like heme, which Impossible Foods currently sources externally.
- • Additional investors in the round include Louis Dreyfus Company, Fonterra, and Viking Global Investors, signaling institutional validation of the synthetic food ingredients market opportunity.
- • Motif's model addresses a supply-chain constraint in the rapidly growing plant-based foods sector, where companies like Impossible Foods have achieved market traction but face ingredient sourcing limitations.
Summary
Ginkgo Bioworks, one of the few unicorns in agricultural technology, announced the launch of Motif Ingredients on February 26, 2019, with a $90 million Series A funding round. The spinoff company will commercialize Ginkgo's core bioengineering capabilities—specifically its ability to rapidly synthesize and express DNA sequences in living organisms—to produce customized food ingredients for the plant-based protein market.
Motif's business model leverages fermentation technology to engineer yeast cells that produce specific flavor and texture compounds. Rather than extracting or synthesizing ingredients through traditional chemical methods, the company cultures modified yeast to generate target molecules through fermentation, similar to beer production but optimized for food ingredient outputs. This approach enables rapid customization of products designed to mimic sensory and textural properties of animal-derived proteins including beef, dairy, and eggs.
The funding round was led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investment vehicle whose board comprises prominent figures including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and Richard Branson. Additional investors included commodity trader Louis Dreyfus Company, dairy cooperative Fonterra, and hedge fund Viking Global Investors. Ginkgo Bioworks itself was last valued at $1.38 billion during its 2017 Series D round, which raised $275 million.
According to Jason Kelly, cofounder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, Motif's competitive positioning targets a specific market gap: ingredient supply for plant-based food companies lacking internal manufacturing capabilities. Kelly noted that while companies like Impossible Foods have achieved market success through their branded products containing difficult-to-source ingredients such as heme, few plant-based manufacturers possess the funding or expertise to develop proprietary ingredients in-house. Motif functions as a B2B supplier, providing customized ingredients to food developers and brands seeking to enter or expand in the plant-based sector without establishing their own bioengineering infrastructure.
This model addresses a critical bottleneck in the rapidly scaling plant-based foods market, where ingredient sourcing constraints have limited product innovation and market expansion. By democratizing access to bioengineered food ingredients, Motif enables a broader ecosystem of food companies to compete in plant-based protein categories that have demonstrated significant commercial momentum and investor interest.
Motif's business model leverages fermentation technology to engineer yeast cells that produce specific flavor and texture compounds. Rather than extracting or synthesizing ingredients through traditional chemical methods, the company cultures modified yeast to generate target molecules through fermentation, similar to beer production but optimized for food ingredient outputs. This approach enables rapid customization of products designed to mimic sensory and textural properties of animal-derived proteins including beef, dairy, and eggs.
The funding round was led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investment vehicle whose board comprises prominent figures including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and Richard Branson. Additional investors included commodity trader Louis Dreyfus Company, dairy cooperative Fonterra, and hedge fund Viking Global Investors. Ginkgo Bioworks itself was last valued at $1.38 billion during its 2017 Series D round, which raised $275 million.
According to Jason Kelly, cofounder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, Motif's competitive positioning targets a specific market gap: ingredient supply for plant-based food companies lacking internal manufacturing capabilities. Kelly noted that while companies like Impossible Foods have achieved market success through their branded products containing difficult-to-source ingredients such as heme, few plant-based manufacturers possess the funding or expertise to develop proprietary ingredients in-house. Motif functions as a B2B supplier, providing customized ingredients to food developers and brands seeking to enter or expand in the plant-based sector without establishing their own bioengineering infrastructure.
This model addresses a critical bottleneck in the rapidly scaling plant-based foods market, where ingredient sourcing constraints have limited product innovation and market expansion. By democratizing access to bioengineered food ingredients, Motif enables a broader ecosystem of food companies to compete in plant-based protein categories that have demonstrated significant commercial momentum and investor interest.
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