Senara Expands Cell-Cultivated Milk Production in Maastricht

German biotech startup Senara has secured regional investment to open a second site in the Netherlands. The company uses bioreactors to grow milk-producing cells and is exploring early markets in cosmetics.

German biotech startup Senara has received an investment from LIOF, the regional development agency for the Dutch province of Limburg, and will open a second location in Maastricht to scale up its cell-cultivated milk technology. The size of the investment was not disclosed. The company was founded in Freiburg in 2022 by Dr Svenja Dannewitz and Dr Philipp Prosseda, and grows milk-producing cells in bioreactors. Senara is now looking into building its own pilot facility in Maastricht and has launched a new funding round to finance it. “We don’t want to change milk; we want to improve the way it is produced,” said Dannewitz, who serves as CEO. Senara is working with international food producers on applications including ice cream, cheese and panna cotta. It is also pursuing non-food uses such as ingredients for cosmetics and skincare, which the company sees as a faster route to market, running in parallel with the more tightly regulated food approval process. Senara expects its first food products to reach supermarket shelves within the next few years. “In the future, farmers could use this technology with bioreactors on their own farms” The company has given more specific timelines in the past. When it came out of stealth mode, Senara said it believed cell-cultivated milk would be a standard supermarket option by 2028. In a previous interview with vegconomist, Dannewitz said its pre-seed and seed funding had gone mainly towards cutting the cost of cell culture media, one of the largest production costs. Access to scale-up infrastructure in Limburg Maastricht has a long history with cultivated food: the world’s first cultivated hamburger was developed there more than ten years ago. The region’s research and industry base now includes Maastricht University, Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus, Mosa Meat and Cultivate at Scale. Cultivate at Scale is an independent, open-access facility spun out of Mosa Meat. Companies can use it to scale up cell culture processes before investing in production plants of their own. The Netherlands also allows tastings of cultivated products under controlled conditions. Annemoon Borst, Investment Manager at LIOF, stated, “Senara is among the European frontrunners in cell-cultivated dairy and has the ambition to grow internationally. Limburg brings together specialised knowledge, entrepreneurship, investment capital and scale-up infrastructure. This provides Senara with a strong environment in which to take the next step towards the market, while at the same time strengthening the ecosystem that continues to develop here.” Dannewitz noted that the technology could eventually be used directly on farms: “We are developing an innovative production method that is more efficient and sustainable. In the future, farmers could use this technology with bioreactors on their own farms. This would allow them to remain an integral part of the food system while creating new ways of producing food.” Thank you! Please confirm your newsletter subscription in the email we just sent you.

Read source: Cultivated X