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Wild Type is a San Francisco based company producing meat products like seafood using cellular agriculture lab techniques. Specifically, Wild Type is using their expertise in tissue engineering to develop cell cultured salmon which is grown from muscle fibre cells. The company was founded by Justin Kolbeck, a former U.S. diplomat, and Aryé Elfenbein, M.D/Ph.D and former cardiology researcher, in 2016 and had five team members as of March, 2018. The company name comes from the phrase 'wild type' in genetics, meaning the normal or common genotype in lab experiments. The company's stated aims are to address climate change, food security, and health through cultured meats.
The technology Wild Type is developing is designed to be a platform for developing multiple types of cultured meat. The company intends to use this platform to initially produce salmon, as well lox for bagels and other types of meat in the future.
Wild Type raised a $3.5 million seed funding round led by Spark Capital, along with Root Ventures, MissionBay Capital, and other angel investors on March 29, 2018.
On October 8, 2019 Wild Type announced raising $12.5 million in series A funding from CRV (lead investor), Spark Capital, Root Ventures, and Maven Ventures. The company plans on using their series A funding to accelerate the development of its cultured salmon meat products.
