Business for Good Podcast Paul Shapiro

If you follow the cultivated meat sector, you know that the last couple years have been tough. Some companies have gone under, others have gone into hibernation, and others have shed staff in cash-conserving layoffs. Major publications have published opinion column obituaries for this industry, yet the work goes on. Part of that work is that of Obillion Bio, a B2B cultivated meat company which successfully raised capital in 2024, surely a Herculean feat.
Having now brought in $15 million, while the Orbillion technology is complex, the business model is simple: grow high-quality wagyu beef cells and then sell those cells to others who will create finished goods with them.
In this conversation, Orbillion CEO Patricia Bubner and I chat about what makes them different from other cultivated meat startups, her work as a plant and fungal biologist prior to her career in mammalian cell culture, what she thinks are the best ways to scale, why she thinks she was successful in fundraising during a funding famine, and more. 
Discussed in this episode
Patricia is a fan of John Steinbeck’s books.
Patricia co-founded The Millet Project.
Orbillion went through the Y Combinator accelerator program
Patricia and Paul both recommend Hannah Ritchie book, Not The End of the World. You can see Paul’s review of it here.
AgFunder News on Orbillion Bio.
More about Patricia Bubner, PhD
Patricia Bubner is a PhD scientist and engineer focused on commercializing cultivated beef. She is the co-founder and CEO of Orbillion Bio, Inc. with the mission to make sustainable, nutritious, and flavorful cultivated meat at price parity. 
Patricia grew up in Graz, Austria, surrounded by an abundance of local and regional foods. With farmers as grandparents, she learned early where food comes from and the hard work that goes into producing it. Her deep interest in food — and the molecular basis of food — led her to study chemistry.
Patricia holds an MSc in Technical Chemistry and a PhD in Biotechnology from Graz University of Technology in Austria, and she conducted her postdoctoral research at the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley. During that time, she also pursued her conviction of a more sustainable food system as a co-founder of the agriculture and food systems initiative, The Millet Project. 
Prior to Orbillion, Patricia advised several technology companies and led the Analytics and QC teams at biopharma startups. During her time with the Bioprocess Science team at Boehringer Ingelheim (BI), she built and led a team dedicated to scaling bioprocess development for mammalian cells — the very systems required to commercialize cultivated meat. At BI, Patricia met and worked hand-in-hand with Orbillion co-founder, Samet Yildirim, on a novel bioprocessing technology now commercialized by Pfizer.
Combining her experience in the biopharma, food, and sustainable materials industries, Patricia co-founded Orbillion Bio, Inc. Orbillion is a B2B cultivated meat technology company that brings commercially viable meat to the ever-growing $211B global ground beef market. Orbillion has developed a game-changing algorithm for the scale-up of cultivated meat that makes commercializing low-cost cultivated beef possible.
Orbillion has raised $15M and is backed by The Venture Collective, Y Combinator, At One Ventures, Venture Souq, and Metaplanet among others.

No cultivated meat company has raised more capital than UPSIDE Foods. In 2022, after having already raised about $200 million in previous rounds, the company raised another $400 million in a Series C round with a company valuation north of the coveted $1 billion unicorn status. No company in the space has garnered more media attention, both positive and critical, than UPSIDE Foods. No company has as much volume of cultivation capacity as UPSIDE Foods. No company is as old as UPSIDE Foods, as it was the first startup formed to take this technology out of academia and work to commercialize real meat grown slaughter-free. It’s also one of the few companies in the world to have been granted regulatory approval to actually sell cultivated meat, which it did in the US.
So it was only fitting that this conversation with UPSIDE CEO Uma Valeti take place in person inside the beating heart of UPSIDE’s EPIC (Cultivated Meat Engineering, Production, and Innovation Center) cultivated meat pilot facility in Emeryville, California. I often say that I’m Uma Valeti’s first biographer, since I profile him in Clean Meat, but I certainly won’t be his last biographer, regardless of whether he succeeds or fails. And the last time I visited UPSIDE Foods, in 2017, when the company was still called Memphis Meats, and I got to enjoy their cultivated duck. At that time, they had only a handful of employees.
Now, as 230 UPSIDE employees worked away in the dramatically nicer building that houses EPIC, I first got to enjoy four different cultivated chicken dishes. I tried both chicken that was FDA-approved and grown in smaller cultivators, and chicken that was yet to be FDA-approved, which was grown in 2,000-liter cultivators. Spoiler: they all tasted great, and were easily discerned from most plant-based chicken in scent, flavor, and texture.
After the tasting, Uma and I sat down for this frank conversation in which we discussed UPSIDE’s past, present, and future. That includes details about the scale and capability at which they currently sit, why they paused their plans for their vaunted Rubicon commercial facility in Illinois, what expansions they’re planning on making at EPIC in California, what Uma thinks about the obituaries some journalists are writing for the cultivated meat industry, when he thinks cultivated meat will reach 1 percent market share in the total meat market, and much more. 
In this conversation, you’ll hear Uma elaborate on how the technology has gone from being decried as impossible to now possible, and what remains to be seen is whether it will now go from possible to inevitable. 
It’s a fascinating and revelatory conversation with a man who has served in many ways as a face for the cultivated meat movement for many years, even prior to founding this company.
Discussed in this episode
This episode is the eighth in our multi-part podcast series on cultivated meat. The previous seven episodes include Avant Meats, BlueNalu, Eat Just, Fork & Good, Mosa Meat, New Harvest, and Aleph Farms.
Our past episode with New Harvest founder Jason Matheny.
A 2013 Washington Post obituary for electric vehicles.
Nine states are now phasing out gas cars by 2035, and so are automakers like GM.
Uma and Paul both endorse the work of the Good Food Institute.
You can see a clip of Paul tasting UPSIDE Foods’ duck in 2017 here.
Uma is profiled in Clean Meat, which has an updated 2024 paperback edition now out. 
Tyson Foods pulled out of its investment in Beyond Meat.
Paul couldn’t recall the exact name in the live interview, but he was referring to Potemkin villages in Russia.
More about Uma Valeti
Dr. Uma Valeti is the CEO and Founder of UPSIDE Foods. Uma earned a degree in Cardiology from the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) in Pondicherry, India. After residencies at Wayne State and SUNY Buffalo, Uma completed three fellowships a

Asia is leading the world when it comes to semiconductors, solar panels, wind turbines, and other technologies critical for the future. In a time when several US states are seeking to ban the sale of cultivated meat, Asia seems to be leaning into the technology, and one of the most mature companies in the space there is Avant Meats. 
Founded in Hong Kong in 2018 and having raised about $15 million USD to date, Avant Meats is focused on making a dent in Asian seafood demand. In this episode, Avant founder and CEO Carrie Chan discusses why her focus is seafood, what scale she’s at and where she hopes to soon go, and how long she thinks it will be before cultivated fish might reach one percent market share in Asia. 
As you’ll hear in this conversation, Avant Meats is already animal component-free in its feedstock for its fish cells, and it’s cultivating inside a 250L bioreactor to generate the material for its public tastings. Now headquartered in Singapore, the company intends to grow there and eventually branch throughout Asia, a project for which it’s currently fundraising.
Discussed in this episode
This episode is the seventh in our multi-part podcast series on cultivated meat. The previous six episodes include BlueNalu, Eat Just, Fork & Good, Mosa Meat, New Harvest, and Aleph Farms.
China alone consumers 65 million tons of seafood annually. 
Carrie points to how China rapidly transformed the small fishing village of Shenzhen into a metropolis, and what relevance this has for cultivated meat scaling.
More about Carrie Chan
Carrie Chan is the co-founder and CEO of Avant Meats. She’s a seasoned business executive with a passion for the environment, particularly the impact of our food supply on the planet. With experiences in strategy and general management, she also managed major greenfield Capex projects from conception to revenue-generating operations. She is a Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst 2022 and holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Carrie co-founded Avant with Dr Mario Chin in 2018 in Hong Kong, the first cultivated fish company in Asia, and expanded to Singapore in 2021. Avant’s technology offers a system to produce nutritious, tasty fish and functional proteins directly from fish cells at economically viable costs. The group’s end-to-end technology platform also allows continuous new product development from scratch to production.  
Avant aims to be a global leader in producing traceable and sustainably cultivated proteins in a fully contained environment for food, skincare, and functional applications. Avant now has a presence in Singapore and Greater China. Avant has also been awarded Technology Pioneer and Global Innovator by the World Economic Forum and featured in Reuters, Financial Times, TIME, Forbes, The Telegraph, South China Morning Post, and CCTV. For more information, please visit www.avantmeats.com.
At Avant, Carrie provides the vision, guides the strategy and supervises the implementation. 

BlueNalu is one of the better-funded companies when it comes to cultivated meat. Having raised more than $100 million, including about $35 million toward the end of 2023—a notoriously difficult time to fundraise—their founder and CEO Lou Cooperhouse is optimistic about their path to success.
But as you’ll hear in this episode, Lou isn’t working to compete against the commodity meats like chicken, pork, and beef. Rather, he’s pursuing a strategy to compete against products that are exponentially higher-cost, like bluefin tuna, which can often sell for more than $100 a pound.
In this conversation, Lou lays out his vision for a future BlueNalu factory with multiple 100,000 liter cultivators churning out some of the priciest oceanic delicacies. And because of this high price point, Lou thinks that his economic model is among the most attractive out there.
We also talk about BlueNalu’s collaborations in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and US, and what he thinks the biggest barriers to success are, and more.
Discussed in this episode
This episode is the sixth in our multi-part podcast series on cultivated meat. The previous five episodes include Eat Just, Fork & Good, Mosa Meat, New Harvest, and Aleph Farms.
BlueNalu’s recent $33.5 million fundraise.
Lou recommends reading Great by Choice and First, Break All the Rules
Lou was a guest on the show more than four years ago in Episode 32!
Lou is affiliated with the Rutgers Food Innovation Center.
More about Lou Cooperhouse
Lou Cooperhouse is recognized as a leading global authority in food business innovation and technology commercialization, with extensive leadership experiences throughout his 40-year career in the food industry.  He is a results-driven professional, and has led cross-functional teams in a wide array of industry settings that include: multinational corporations, foodservice and retail operations, new business startups, mid-sized and family-run companies, university entrepreneurship and innovation centers, and industry trade associations.   With his deep and diverse understanding of the food industry, Lou has spoken at hundreds of conferences throughout his career, specializing in food trends, disruptive technologies, and global best practices in business innovation and incubation.

When you think about cultivated meat, Thailand isn’t exactly the first country that comes to mind. Sure, you may think about the US, Netherlands, Israel, and Singapore. But the Southeast Asian kingdom is where Israeli cultivated meat juggernaut Aleph Farms recently announced its first commercial factory will be. 
Having just received Israel’s first regulatory approval to sell cultivated meat—and the world’s first regulatory approval for cultivated beef in particular—Aleph Farms CEO Didier Toubia discusses his company’s rollout strategy with me in this conversation. As you’ll hear, Aleph wants to start by selling limited quantities in Israel within 2024, but the company intends to operate its first plant in Thailand with what Didier calls an “asset light” pilot facility capable of producing 1,000 tons a year. For those of you who aren’t mathletes, that’s about two million pounds of finished cultivated meat product—”finished” meaning finished goods that are a hybrid of animal cells and plant-based ingredients as well.
Of course, two million pounds is a vast quantity compared to the volume of cultivated meat that’s been produced thus far, but it’s not even a rounding error in Asia’s meat demand, let alone global meat demand. So how long will it be before Didier thinks the cultivated meat sector will make a real dent in animal meat demand? You can hear his answer in this episode!
Despite negative headlines surrounding the space lately, Didier claims he’s more optimistic than ever before about his prospects for success, and that he’s still fighting to have $1 billion in revenue within the next 10 years. You can hear him explain why he thinks that’s realistic in this conversation. 
Discussed in this episode
This episode is the fifth in a multi-part podcast series on cultivated meat. The previous four episodes include Eat Just, Fork & Good, Mosa Meat, and New Harvest.
We discussed Aleph Farms and the impact of the 10/7 Hamas massacre in Israel in our recent episode with Kitchen CEO Jonathan Berger.
Aleph Farms’ recent announcement to move to set up shop in Thailand, partnering with Fermbox Bio.
Didier attended The Better Meat Co.’s Night Under the Fermenters.
The global meat market is worth about $1.5 trillion.
Didier’s recent Fast Company op-ed explaining his regret about cultivated meat timeline predictions.
More about Didier Toubia
Didier Toubia is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aleph Farms. He’s a Food Engineer and Biologist who led two medical device companies and co-invented over 40 patent families; Co-Founder and CEO of IceCure – went public in 2010, and CEO of NLT Spine – acquired by SeaSpine in 2016. He was trained at AgroSup in Dijon, France, and was awarded with a specialized masters degree from ESCP Business School. Didier holds a joint Executive MBA degree from the Kellogg and Recanati business schools, USA and Israel.

When the New York Times recently ran an opinion column declaring the infant fatality of the cultivated meat industry, Isha Datar, CEO of New Harvest, was quoted as saying of the sector, “this is a bubble that is going to pop.”
Given that New Harvest is intended to promote and advance the field, what did Isha mean by this? She expounded on that thought in a 2,000-word commentary asserting that while she disagrees with the columnist’s conclusion that cultivated meat can never become a viable reality, she believes that the sector has been plagued by “exaggerations, lies, and broken promises.”
In this episode, Isha and I talk about what she’s referring to, the difference she sees between cellular agriculture via precision fermentation (e.g., Perfect Day and EVERY) and cellular agriculture aimed at producing actual animal meat (e.g., Eat Just and Mosa Meat), whether cultivated meat is more like flying cars (a far future technology) or electric cars from 15 years ago (not yet ready, but realistically possible), what pathway forward she sees toward actually fulfilling the promise to end the factory farming of animals. 
Discussed in this episode
Isha’s first appearance in 2020 on this show, Episode 42
Our recent episodes in this podcast series on cultivated meat with Eat Just, Fork & Good, and Mosa Meat.
New Harvest’s thoughts on the recent NY Times opinion column on cultivated meat
The EU’s FEASTS program: Fostering European Cellular Agriculture for Sustainable Transition Solution
The Tufts University Institute for Cellular Agriculture
Isha recommends reading The Generosity Network by Jennifer McCrea
More about Isha Datar
Isha has been pioneering cellular agriculture since 2009, driven by a passion to see transformative technology create a better world. In 2010, Isha published "Possibilities for an in-vitro meat production system" in Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies; thus began her quest to establish the field of cell ag. 
Isha became Executive Director of New Harvest in 2013. She co-founded Muufri (now Perfect Day) and Clara Foods in 2014, and soon after passed her founding equity to New Harvest in full to establish the first endowment for cell ag research. In 2015 she named the field "cellular agriculture" - officially creating a category for agriculture products produced from cell cultures rather than whole plants or animals. She is a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow and also served as a Director’s Fellow at the MIT Media Lab. 
Isha has a BSc. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Alberta and a Masters in Biotechnology from the University of Toronto.