Miruku develops molecular farming technology that programs plant cells—primarily safflower—to produce dairy proteins and modify fatty acid profiles, aiming to replace animal-derived dairy ingredients. The company focuses on a B2B model and says it modifies both proteins and fats within the same plant while leveraging interactions between recombinant dairy casein and native plant proteins to increase usable seed yield. Since its 2022 seed raise, Miruku has reached several proof-of-concept milestones for its proprietary dairy seed system, tripled its team, and formed co-development relationships with food manufacturing partners. Miruku has expanded its footprint to Israel and Australia, selecting Australia for initial market entry and planning to explore a U.S. presence. The company announced a $5 million pre-Series A round, which it described as an up round, to accelerate crop development and advance market readiness. Miruku has partnered with CSIRO to take modified safflower varieties into field trials in Australia as part of its commercialization efforts. Miruku is developing an alternative-dairy technology that programs and breeds plant crops to express real dairy proteins and other molecules directly in plant cells, using sunlight as the energy source. Founded in 2020 by Amos Palfreyman, Ira Bing, Harjinder Singh and Oded Shoseyov, the founding team has experience in dairy and plant science. The company is developing its technology in labs and greenhouses and is working with corporate and R&D partners to scale and implement across geographies. Miruku contrasts its approach with precision fermentation and cell cultivation by producing dairy building blocks inside plants, which the company says can be more efficient than cows. The team acknowledges technical challenges in programming plants to express mammalian proteins while retaining structure and function, and uses computational biology and techno-economic analysis to model optimal expression levels. Miruku was self-funded for its first 18 months and has doubled headcount this year; it secured $2.4 million in seed funding to add technology staff, develop partnerships and accelerate development, targeting prototypes and proof-of-concept soon and commercial use of its proteins in two to three years.

Total raised

$7M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Feb 2024