The EVERY Company, which pioneered the use of precision fermentation to make egg proteins with microbes instead of chickens, has announced the first close of its $55 million Series D round and says products featuring its proteins are about to roll out across the US at Walmart.
The round—which takes EVERY”s cumulative funding to $294 million—was led by McWin Capital Partners with participation from Main Sequence, Bloom8, TO.VC, Minerva Foods, Grosvenor Food & AgTech, New Agrarian, and SOSV. It will help EVERY expand manufacturing capacity and move to profitability.
“We had a target of raising $50 million and ended up closing in on $55 million,” said founder and CEO Arturo Elizondo, who said a second close is planned later this year. “There were a couple of investors that weren’t able to make the initial deadline, so we’re keeping it open for some of the stragglers.”
“EVERY has crossed the line from promise to proof,” said Martin Davalos at McWin Capital Partners. “They’re not talking about proof-of-concept pilots here; they’re selling metric tons of product at scale to some of the biggest food companies on the planet.”
Basic economics, not ethics and sustainability, driving demand
While there are ethical and environmental arguments for making eggs without chickens, most buyers are motivated by basic economics, Elizondo told AgFunderNews.
After years of pricing volatility, salmonella outbreaks and supply challenges that come into focus whenever there’s a bout of avian flu, he said, food manufacturers just want a stable and secure supply of eggs. And EVERY can provide a shelf-stable powdered product with an 18-month shelf-life that can replace liquid egg, which has a far shorter shelf-life and has to be refrigerated.
“It’s not the vegan angle, it’s not the animal-free angle, but supply chain stability and consistency,” said Elizondo. “These last few avian flu outbreaks have really woken up a lot of the companies to say, ‘Hey, we really need to have something in place that works.’ And while other egg replacers work in some specific applications, they don’t really function the way that egg proteins do.”
As for pricing, he said, “Some of our customers are actually saving money using our protein. For some of them, it’s more or less at price parity, and then for some, there’s a premium they’re willing to pay for peace of mind. We’re not really competing with powdered egg, we’ve primarily been getting traction from companies where we can deliver the functionality of liquid eggs in a powdered format.”
‘The green light from major global food companies’
As for unit economics, he said, “EVERY now has a very clear path to profitability; we’ve been manufacturing for some time making metric tons of product for customers who have now integrated it into their supply chains. It’s now in [an undisclosed product rolling out nationwide at] Walmart and we are getting the green light from major global food companies.”
Investors, he said, can see that “It works, it delivers the functionality of a liquid egg in a powdered format, and the economics work for customers as well. So if you look at the fundamentals, I think we’re in a good place.”
The EVERY Co has developed a range of proteins including a highly soluble glycoprotein (“OvoBoost”) that can be dropped into beverage applications at high inclusion rates. However, its immediate focus is ovalbumin (“OvoPro”), the primary protein in egg white, he said.
“As we bring more production online, we can then start onboarding other proteins in our portfolio. But our priority right now is egg replacement, so we need to have enough capacity to satiate demand for that in bakery and other applications and have our customers feel comfortable with our manufacturing footprint.”
The manufacturing footprint
While there are pros and cons to working with co-manufacturers, EVERY Co has unit economics that can make the model work, he claimed.
“We’re manufacturing in Europe today and we’re looking to onboard a second manufacturing partner in the US that will allow us to build redundancy in our supply chain, which is very important for large multinationals that want multiple facilities to draw from. And fortunately both of these partners have capacity to continue growing and expanding our footprint as we scale.”
At the height of the alt-protein boom, he said, competition for manufacturing capacity was intense and CMOs could command prices that made the unit economics very unfavorable for startups.
Today, he says, “there are far fewer companies in our space that are actively competing for manufacturing capacity, but we have also been able to enter into strategic partnerships with companies with large scale manufacturing capacity that are not built as CMOs.”
In the Middle East, meanwhile, EVERY and fellow precision fermentation startup Vivici have entered into a strategic partnership with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) to explore tenancy in a 4-million-liter alt protein facility in the UAE, he said.
“ADIO is very well connected to the finance ecosystem in the region. And so part of what we are going to be putting together is the syndicate of different capital providers, debt, equity, etc, to ultimately finance the construction of this facility.”
He added: “Most of the countries in the [gulf] region import up to 70% of their eggs, so there is regional demand [for a locally-produced alternative].”
‘You just need one or two winners…’
Stepping back, he said, the fact that EVERY has been able to raise such a large round in the current investment climate is a testament to the fact that alt proteins can make sense where they address real pain points in the food industry with unit economics that are “relevant for the mass market.”
He added: “We have to do our homework around what products to pick, and is there a real problem that we’re solving? But ultimately, you just need one or two winners to really reinvigorate the space.”
Asked about being at the receiving end of a lawsuit from rival Onego Bio over IP, he said, “We always knew that as a company with a very deep tech stack, it’s just a matter of time before you’re going to have to defend it.”
Further reading:
The EVERY Co and Onego Bio eyed merger before IP talks went south, court docs reveal
‘Objectively unreasonable’: Onego Bio slams The Every Co in high-stakes patent fight
Vivici and The Every Co explore 4m-liter alt protein facility in UAE
Egg protein IP fight escalates as VTT challenges Every Co patent in Europe
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