Startup Spotlight: Multus

Company: Multus

Location: London, UK

Founding year: 2019

CEO/Founders: Cai Linton, Reka Tron and Kevin Pan

Tech summary:
Multus is revolutionising the way that cultivated meat is grown. By producing low-cost and serum-free cell culture media, it is paving the way for lab grown meat to become a supermarket staple. The company are manufacturing sustainable and ethical replacements for the animal serum-based growth media required in cultivated meat production. Multus works with proprietary protein engineering technology, and their first product, Proliferum M, will be one of many to use proteins from high-performance yeast strains.  

History:
Through collaboration between three science and engineering students from Imperial College London, the idea for Multus was conceived in early 2019. Cai, Reka and Kevin share a passion for synthetic biology and recognise the importance of meat alternatives in supporting food systems to become more environmentally friendly. Using animal serum-based growth media to cultivate meat defeats the purpose of producing more sustainable consumer products. In this, Multus have identified their market niche.

Vision and progress:
2021 was an extremely successful year for Multus. Alongside joining the EIT Food Accelerator Network programme, the company closed a funding round of £1.6M and the team grew from 6 to 11 extraordinary scientists and engineers. Multus surpassed another major milestone in shipping their first product, Proliferum M, to over 10 companies. They are continuing to make strides towards their mission of making cultivated meat the affordable and sustainable choice, for everyone. Multus’s primary focus is to drive product-market fit, deliver their growth media ingredients and formulations to new and existing customers, and continue down the cost curve with an industry-leading production system that meets the necessity of scale and safety.

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