Meatly’s £10.4M Series A: How the Startup Is Cutting Cultivated‑Meat Costs and Scaling to a 20,000‑Litre Plant

Cultivated meat has long promised a way to produce real animal protein without traditional livestock farming—but scaling it cheaply has been the sector’s biggest challenge. UK food‑tech startup Meatly is trying to solve that problem with new infrastructure and aggressive cost reductions.

In 2026, the London‑based company raised £10.4 million in Series A funding to build a large cultivated‑meat production facility in the UK capital. The plant will center on a 20,000‑litre bioreactor system, designed to move the company from small‑scale R&D toward commercial production by 2027.

What the £10.4M Series A funding will be used for

The primary goal of the funding round is infrastructure.

Meatly plans to build a 20,000‑litre cultivated‑meat bioreactor facility in London, which the company says will be the largest cultivated‑meat production site in Europe once completed.

The project is intended to bridge the gap between lab‑scale innovation and industrial manufacturing. Fit‑out of the facility is expected to begin immediately, with initial production and product launches targeted for 2027.

The Series A round follows earlier seed funding and pushes the company’s total funding raised to roughly £17.4–£17.5 million, depending on the source.

Investors backing Meatly

The round brought in a mix of new venture investors alongside existing backers from the cultivated‑protein ecosystem.

Key investors include:

• Oyster Bay Venture Capital
• Clean Growth Fund
• JamJar Investments
• Agronomics (existing investor)
• Pets at Home (existing investor)

These investors are betting that cultivated protein can become a new category of food production as companies solve the cost and scaling challenges that have slowed the industry so far.

How Meatly is lowering cultivated‑meat production costs

One of the biggest barriers to cultivated meat is production cost, particularly the price of growth media and bioreactor equipment. Meatly says it has made progress on both fronts.

1. Lower culture‑medium costs

In 2024, the company reported reducing the cost of its chemically defined, protein‑free cultivation medium to about £0.22 per litre, which it describes as an industry‑leading price.

Culture medium—the nutrient solution that feeds growing cells—is typically one of the most expensive components of cultivated‑meat production. Reducing its cost is widely seen as essential for commercial viability.

2. Cutting bioreactor costs roughly 10×

Meatly also reported about a tenfold reduction in bioreactor costs as it redesigned its production equipment.

Earlier disclosures indicate the company developed in‑house reactor designs, including smaller systems costing about £12,500 compared with traditional biopharma reactors that can cost around £250,000, demonstrating how customized hardware could dramatically lower capital expenses for cultivated‑meat facilities.

Together, these improvements target two of the most expensive elements of the production process: the growth environment and the equipment used to scale it.

The plan for the 20,000‑litre London facility

The upcoming London site represents Meatly’s next step toward industrial‑scale production.

Key goals for the facility include:

• Deploying 20,000 litres of bioreactor capacity for cultivated‑meat production.
• Serving as a scale‑up platform between laboratory development and mass manufacturing.
• Enabling commercial product launches targeted for 2027.

The company is initially focused on cultivated meat for pet food, growing chicken cells—originally derived from a single egg—to produce products such as pet treats.

Starting with the pet‑food market is a common strategy in the cultivated‑protein sector because regulatory pathways and price expectations can be more flexible than in human food markets.

Why investors see cultivated meat as a new protein category

Backers of the technology view cultivated meat as a potential new way to produce animal protein without raising and slaughtering animals.

Companies like Meatly are trying to build the production infrastructure that would allow this approach to scale—moving from laboratory breakthroughs to industrial food manufacturing.

The success of projects such as the London bioreactor facility will help determine whether cultivated meat can evolve from an experimental technology into a commercially viable protein category.

For now, Meatly’s Series A funding is a step toward that goal: building the factories and cost structure needed to make cultivated meat at meaningful scale.