Fable Food, a mushroom-based meat alternative startup based in Australia, has reportedly raised $8.5 million in a Series A round.
The funding round was led by the Singapore-based venture capital firm K3. Other contributors included Peter Singer, a professor at Princeton and prominent animal rights activist, Adrien Desbaillets and Frantz Braha, the co-founders of SaladStop!, as well as Greg Creed, the former global CEO of Yum! Brands, the parent organization of Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell. Existing investors Blackbird, AgFunder and Aera VC also participated in the round, along with vegan television personality and podcaster Osher Günsberg and his wife Audrey Griffen.
Fable launched in December 2019 and is renowned for having broken new ground in the meat alternative market with its mushroom-based meat products that are clean label, minimally processed and made with all-natural, plant-based ingredients.
The company previously had an $6.5 million seed funding round in August 2021 and has since expanded its footprint in Australia and begun to reach other countries such as the UK, the United States, New Zealand, Singapore, and Canada.
Last year in fact Fable entered the UK market with burger chain Honest Burgers, meal delivery companies Gousto and Planty, and the UK’s first organic supermarket chain Planet Organic. The brand also launched into the United States with plant-based quick service restaurant chain Beatnic, New Zealand with Hell Pizza, and Singapore with SaladStop.
Fable also entered into new brand partnerships in North America, with the launch of its meaty pulled mushrooms into plant-based New York-based meal delivery service CookUnity, cult plant-based restaurant chain The Butcher’s Daughter, as well as Canadian cooked meal delivery service Ethey.
The go-to-market strategy of the startup is to partner with renowned chefs and F&B organizations in four key markets: restaurants, meal kit providers, upscale quick service restaurants, as well as value-added manufacturing to retail, such as Whole Foods, which uses Fable Foods' alternatives in their ready-to-eat burritos.
Fable Food will use the latest funds for research and development, and new meat products made from mushrooms are in the works. It also intends to expand into more foreign countries, specifically focusing on the United Kingdom, North America, and Singapore. “Thanks to the backing and support of K3 Ventures and all of our investors, we will be able to accelerate bringing our delicious, clean label, and sustainable meaty mushroom products to every market in the world,” Michael Fox, Co-founder and CEO of Fable, said.
“We want to inspire the world to make more sustainable food choices,” Fox added. “We believe that eating more delicious, meaty food made from mushrooms will help the world reduce global meat consumption – without compromising on taste, texture, or experience – and this is how we will be able to achieve a more sustainable food system.”
Meati, the Mushroom Meat Co., and MyForest Foods are three other firms that produce plant-based meat using mushrooms. Fox outlined how Meati and MyForest Foods produce their meat substitute goods by fermenting mycelium. Fox stated that Fable uses agriculture and shiitake mushrooms that are cultivated on farms.
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