Bond Pet Foods completes seed funding round

December 5, 2019

KBW Ventures joins the $1.2 million raise led by Lever VC

Bond Pet Foods Inc. (Bond), the Boulder, Colorado-based company working with biotechnology to make nutritious, animal-free and protein-rich pet food, announced today that it has completed its Seed funding, totaling $1.2 million.

Bond was co-founded by Rich Kelleman, CEO and Pernilla Audibert, CTO in 2017 with a mission to be an ally for all animals. Employing the same fermentation technology that is used to produce ingredients for cheese making and insulin for diabetics, Bond is adjusting the process to instead harvest high-quality meat proteins like chicken, turkey, beef and fish, but without the animal.

The Bond Pet Food team L to R: Co-founders Rich Kelleman, CEO, Pernilla Audibert, CTO, and Luis Brandao, Senior Research Scientist

With their proprietary approach, animal muscle protein genes are taken from a farm animal and added to a microbe such as yeast, then put into a fermentation tank and fed simple sugars, vitamins and minerals. This produces proteins that are nutritionally identical to their meat counterparts without the environmental, animal welfare and safety downsides. The ingredients are then used as the foundation of Bond’s complete recipes.

The seed round is led by Lever VC, a venture capital fund specializing in alternative protein investments, with Agronomics, KBW Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, and Andante Asset Management participating.

What makes us so excited about Bond Pet Foods is that it’s the first clean-meat company producing meat protein in a way that doesn’t require major technological breakthroughs to get to price parity with conventional meat,” said Nick Cooney, Founder and Managing Partner at Lever VC. “We don’t think there’s any other company out there with the potential to disrupt the $100 billion pet food market as much as Bond Pet Foods.”

Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud, founder and CEO, KBW Ventures

This round of funding will be instrumental in driving the research and development needed to develop and scale Bond’s animal protein production and to debut its first consumer product early next year, a protein-packed dog treat bar made with a pure yeast protein. It also serves as an important first step in elevating the use of ingredients made through microbial fermentation in pet food, and educating the public about its merits.

“This raise gives us the capital to make strides with our technology and introduce pet parents to a new and better way of feeding their dogs and cats,” said Rich Kelleman, Co-Founder and CEO of Bond Pet Foods. “We started Bond to deliver high nutrition to our pets without harm to other animals or to our planet, and we’re excited to bring our transformative products to the world in the months ahead.”

“KBW Ventures joined Bond’s seed round because we see that their proprietary approach to production has far reaching implications. The technology and science behind Bond products is in line with our values; we want to back ventures that are commercially-promising and that seek sustainable solutions,” said HRH Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed, founder and Chief Executive Officer, KBW Ventures.

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