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Yali Bio comes out of stealth mode to launch synthetic fat

Lab-generated, synthetic fat startup Yali Bio is the latest company to raise funds to develop a plant-based alternative fat that mimics animal-derived options. While the company is still a nascent startup, it has already drummed up some institutional funding and is a part of the Illumina Accelerator program cohort from September 2021 to March 2022.

According to PitchBook, Yali Bio is backed by venture capitalist companies, including the accelerator program, Quiet Capital, UpHonest Capital and Third Kind Venture Capital.

Cultured fats have become a focus for many food tech companies lately as plant-based products continue to explode in popularity. Currently, coconut and palm oil are the primary alternatives to animal fat, but those choices are laden with their own sustainability concerns, including child labor, deforestation and other environmental ramifications. Furthermore, meat analogs that are created using these alternative fats tend to be dry due to the fact that these plant oils leech out of the product during cooking.

This dryness is what inspired the creation of Yali Bio. Co-founded by Yulin Lu who previously worked for Eat Just and Impossible Foods, Yali Bio is based on the idea that each plant-based product application needs to have a fat tailored to its unique ingredient profile. A generic catch-all will not suffice, Lu told The Spoon.

For Yali Bio, yeast is the principal ingredient supporting the development of its synthetic fat. With the help of this natural fermentation ingredient, Yali Bio employs lipid biosynthesis engineering to direct the metabolism of alternative ingredients by yeast to create microbial lipids. These fats are then introduced into plant-based products using a method that allows them to more seamlessly integrate with other ingredients.

Due to the efficacy of this biosynthesis approach, there have been several startups that have taken to exploring this method as a means of creating a fat that mimics the juiciness inherent to animal meat. But this method is not the only way in which startups are looking to engineer fat from sources other than animals. Flavor company Firmenich launched its own proprietary fat mimicking technology, cultivated fat startup Mission Barns raised $24 million in April to begin piloting a fat created from animal cells and Cubiq Foods raised 5 million euros ($5.5 million) to accelerate the development of its cell-based fats.

Although cell-based fat alternatives have come into vogue, it is still a technology that is primarily in the R&D phase, and companies developing this technology will likely need to go through a multitude of approval processes in order to commercialize their solutions. Yali bio, on the other hand, is focusing on yeast to develop its fat alternatives. In doing so, the startup is giving itself a leg up in terms of regulatory approvals. The result may be a faster go-to-market strategy for the early-stage startup.