San Leandro, California food-tech startup growing cultivated beef cells in serum-free suspension and blending them into hybrid burgers with plant-based ingredients.
The bet
That a hybrid burger of ~10% CRISPR-grown cultivated beef plus plant protein could reach price parity with conventional beef before investors lost patience.
Approximately $40M raised between 2019 and 2024
Founded in 2019 as Artemys Foods in San Leandro, California and rebranded SCiFi Foods in 2022, the startup set out to make a hybrid burger combining cultivated beef with plant-based ingredients to reach price parity with conventional beef. Co-founders Joshua March and Kasia Gora pursued the blended strategy because pure cultivated meat was not yet technically or commercially viable (vegconomist).
The team reported a 1,000x cost reduction by growing edible beef cell lines in single-cell suspension in standard large bioreactors — serum-free, with 24-hour doubling and titers of 10 g/L in fed-batch — and said per-burger cost fell from $20,000 to under $15 with a route to parity within a few years (vegconomist; Meatingplace). It opened a pilot facility in December 2023 and completed its first 500L bioreactor run of cultivated beef in January 2024 (Meatingplace). CEO Joshua March said a tight funding environment and a hostile US political climate made it 'effectively impossible' to raise the tens of millions needed even for a small commercial launch (Meatingplace).
Ceased operations in June 2024, handed its IP and assets to an advisory firm for sale, and entered a voluntary Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors. In the founders' words: 'SCiFi Foods ran out of time' (vegconomist; Meatingplace).
Cultivated meat required hundreds of millions for full commercialization, and the market's funding window closed while SCiFi was still pre-revenue.
A hybrid product was a deliberate cost compromise, but it still could not reach launch economics before runway ran out.
Investor appetite for cultivated meat collapsed across the sector in 2023-2024, so a strong technology story no longer translated into capital.
The 1,000x cost milestone landed months too late — the pilot facility and first 500L run came only about five months before the shutdown.
A 1,000x cost cut doesn't save you if the funding door closes first: technical milestones must land inside the market's fundraising window or the company dies before the product ships.
As of 2026-09-02 SCiFi Foods remains wound down and never brought its burger to market. Its suspension-adapted bovine cell lines and serum-free media were bought by The Good Food Institute, which announced in October 2025 they would be made publicly available — first to academic institutions, then commercial entities — stored at Tufts University's Center for Cellular Agriculture. GFI said the transfer saves researchers millions of dollars and years of development; co-founder Joshua March noted it took SCiFi four years and tens of millions of dollars to develop the cells.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
The sources
- SCiFi Foods Ceases Operations Amid Funding Challenges vegconomist · vegconomist.com ·
- SCiFi Foods writes final chapter: Cultivated meat firm closes its doors Meatingplace · meatingplace.com ·
- GFI Acquires SCiFi Foods' Cell Lines, Joins Tufts to Fast-Track Cultivated Meat Research vegconomist · vegconomist.com ·