Black Sheep Foods develops plant-based meats by isolating flavor molecules from animal meat, finding those molecules in plants, and reconstructing meat-like flavor, mouthfeel and richness using patent-pending technology. The company has focused on a lamb-flavored product and has grown distribution from initial restaurant trials to 44 restaurants across San Francisco and Los Angeles. It reported month-over-month sales growth of 22% and saw notable early adoption at partners such as Souvla. Black Sheep has been production-constrained at a facility able to produce 5,000 pounds per month and plans to move to a site capable of 16 million pounds per year, likely starting in Q1 2023. The company will deploy new capital into product and R&D teams as well as sales and marketing to accelerate growth. Black Sheep Foods develops plant-based versions of heritage meats and wild game, focusing on patent-pending flavor compounds that are detected in the nose rather than relying solely on mouth taste. The company has been working in R&D since 2019 to create compounds composed of pea protein and fatty acids and to optimize delivery. It launched a plant-based lamb last year through restaurant partnerships, including Souvla, and is expanding to additional Bay Area restaurants and into airline service via Souvla’s Delta first- and business-class offerings. Black Sheep says it has sold out through existing chef partners and is outperforming comparable plant-based sales metrics. The new funding is intended to help propel these products to a more mainstream audience and to support continued R&D into synthetic-biology flavors such as wild boar. Management plans to use the capital to both validate market size for lamb and further develop its flavor technology.

Total raised

$18M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Dec 2022