BioBetter

Based in Israel, BioBetter offers a plant expression platform that uses tobacco plants as biofactories to produce low-cost recombinant proteins for applications in the cultivated meat, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries. Its portfolio includes food-grade growth factors like FGF2, Transferrin, and Insulin, sold under the BioBov brand.

The process involves inserting the genes of the target protein into the tobacco plants (recombinant DNA technology), which then express the desired protein. The plants with the highest expression are selected to develop the tobacco plant lines. These plants are then grown in open field plantations, harvested, and go through a proprietary extraction and purifying process to produce the target protein. The startup uses the nicotiana tabacum tobacco plant species, as it has four growing cycles and can be harvested all year round, enabling large-scale production of growth factors.

In September 2023, the company opened its first food-grade pilot facility for its molecular farming technology.

Funding and financial

In its latest funding round in September 2022, the company raised USD 10 million in Series A funding led by Jerusalem Venture Partners. The funding was to be used to help scale up the production of cell-cultured meat by expanding the company’s growth factor portfolio, moving to a larger pilot plant, and increasing the workforce.

In September 2023, 3D Bio Tissue (3DBT), BioBetter, and LenioBio received a total of EUR 1.8 million (~USD 1.9 million) for winning EIT Food and the Good Food Institute (GFI) Europe's Cultivated Meat Innovation Challenge. The funding was earmarked for research efforts to create cost-effective cell-cultured meat for cultivated meat production, with a focus on enhancing cell growth and yields.