Funding & Investment

Public and private funding both play a critical role in advancing the technical and commercialisation goals of the cellular agriculture industry.

 
 

Background

Investment in the cellular agriculture industry, in addition to the aim of delivering financial returns, has the potential to enable the widespread environmental and societal benefits of cellular agriculture to be realised. Whilst the capital investment required to build full scale production facilities remains somewhat speculative, the cost will be considerable. Companies will need access to significant funding to support their scale up from pilot to commercial production. There may also be scope for lower cost, small scale and/or distributed operations that may create the need for alternative funding models. Historically, government funding has been instrumental in the successful introduction of other new technologies. Currently, in Canada almost all the investment into cellular agriculture is coming from private sources. 

Research Focus Areas

Public investment - There are numerous historical examples where public investment has played a vital role in accelerating the commercialisation and success of new technologies including cellular (phone) technology, (internet) search and renewable energy. Similarly, the nascent cellular agriculture industry requires government support and investment in three key areas: 1. Building skilled talent pipelines 2. Funding open source research to accelerate the entire industry 3. Development of key infrastructure to promote research and scale up manufacturing. Some research questions could include:

  • How has public funding been proven to be effective in similar industries, such as renewable energy, conventional agriculture research and medicine?

  • How can we measure the impact of public vs private funding for R&D? What are the relative benefits and drawbacks of each?

  • Are there any non-traditional models of public funding that might be effective for cellular agriculture research?

  • Which government priority areas could cellular agriculture positively contribute to and where does it fit within the various agencies, strategies and roadmaps?

  • How can we most effectively appeal to public sector decision makers to support cellular agriculture and encourage public funding into the field?

Private investment - We need to encourage and enable private investment to fund the acceleration of individual companies whilst promoting transparency and information sharing. The value proposition of individual companies is in their intellectual property which results in heavily guarded and siloed research and development. In addition to public investment, collaboration and knowledge sharing across companies should be maximised to enable faster acceleration of the field as a whole. At the very least this should involve non-sensitive areas such as food safety and consumer acceptance. Ways in which private funding can be extended to the non-commercial space should also be investigated. Some research questions could include:

  • What type of private investment is cellular agriculture attracting, how is this evolving with the industry, and what are the implications for its development?

  • Which models of private funding have worked for emerging industries in the past?

  • Which private funding models might be effective to support cellular agriculture companies and their investors without reducing the sharing of knowledge?

  • Which non-traditional private funding models might benefit cellular agriculture companies? For example microfinancing, crowdfunding or venture finance models.

Investigations into optimal funding models are required urgently. People with a range of investment skills including financial analysis and modelling, economics, impact investment, venture capital, commercialisation and grant funding will have a role in the advancement of the field. Similarly, public policy professionals and political lobbyists will be required to advocate for and administer government funding.