Animal-Free Dairy-Tech Company Raises $24.7 Million

Berkeley, CA-based food-technology company Perfect Day secured a $24.7 million in Series A funding this week led by Singapore state-owned firm Temasek. The company also secured a patent for its technology to create animal-free dairy proteins using vegan yeast-based technology. “This funding will enable the company to grow the team, accelerate scale-up efforts, and, ultimately, commercialize with a wide variety of partners across the food and dairy sectors,” Perfect Day co-founder Perumal Gandhi said. The company was founded in 2014 and last year announced that it would be able to use 3D-printing technology to create vegan cheese with its proprietary dairy-free protein. Chile-based competitor The Not Company—which is also working to disrupt the dairy industry with technology-based solutions—relies on artificial intelligence (a discovery machine nicknamed “Guiseppe”) to isolate plant-based proteins that mimic those of animal products, particularly dairy, and plans to launch its products in Walmart by 2019.