Artificial fat startup Yali Bio has completed millions of dollars of pre-seed round financing. This round of financing is mainly used for the R&D of early products.
Yali Bio's main business is to use synthetic biology technology to replace animal fat or plant fat. Synthetic biology has certain technical barriers. Yali bio's current products have passed GRAS certification, which is the classification of chemical substances or food additives by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which proves that the products are safe.
In the first version of Yali Bio's products, the price of artificial coconut oil is $3-5/kg. In the bulk market, the price of coconut oil is about $1-2/kg. One of the next research and development priorities is to reduce costs.
Yali Bio is aiming at the global market. Due to different living habits, the regional demand varies greatly. For example, the North American market is very interested in butter and artificial meat fat upgrading, while the Asian market is more interested in low-carbon chocolate. The company's early product research and development were mainly aimed at the North American market. At present, the team has also begun to conduct research in the Asian market and carry out product research and development for Asian consumers, especially Chinese consumers. Next, it plans to set up an Asian R&D center in Singapore or China (Shenzhen or Shanghai). Take chocolate as an example. Yali Bio's low-carbon chocolate does not contain cocoa and has lower calories than ordinary chocolate. At present, the product is still in the stage of R&D iteration.