Vegan ice cream maker Eclipse Foods raises $40M to launch alternative milk reports TechCrunch.
The company will use the funds raised to grow its retail and food service business, research and develop its own plant-based dairy platform.
In the production of vegan ice cream, the company uses a patented technology using tiny particles - micelles. Such particles are present in the shell of milk protein, but the company has learned to imitate them using potatoes, cassava and corn.
Despite the use of vegetable raw materials, the taste and texture of ice cream do not differ from the usual. The company notes that the technology can be used to create cream cheese, butter, milk and other products.
Eilon Steinhart, co-founder of the company and expert on alternative proteins, notes that today in the dairy industry there is no real replacement for dairy products, only substitutes. Therefore, Eclipse Foods will compete for a part of the market, the value of which is estimated at $ 500 billion.
Eclipse Foods was founded in 2019 by chef Thomas Bowman and alternative protein expert Eilon Steinhart. In three years, the company managed to increase its presence in retail trade by 2100%. By According to by Cision, the global market for dairy alternatives will reach $2028 billion by 50.