Miruku: Growing milk from plants

Kia Ora friends!

In the last two months, we have seen a flurry of activity in the New Zealand startup ecosystem as people returned from their summer breaks. We have made some new investments in food and agriculture tech, which is an exciting new segment for us. As the threat of climate change continues to mount, especially on the agriculture sector, we are finding more and more founders in NZ who are using the latest technologies to come up with innovative solutions. We are delighted to highlight our recent investment in Miruku.

Startup of the month: Miruku

NZVC is excited make its first investment in the “molecular farming” space with Miruku, a New Zealand-based company developing a revolutionary approach to sustainable and affordable animal-free dairy. Miruku uses a unique plant-based platform to produce casein protein and fatty acids, key components of traditional dairy products. 

The company's CEO Amos Palfreyman, believes that Miruku's technology has the potential to address critical issues of food security and nutrition. He is a 4th generation dairy farmer and entrepreneur with a deep understanding of the dairy industry. 

Miruku is built on the idea that plants are nature's bioreactor. They have created a modified Safflower plant whose seeds is the source of casein protein and fatty acids. Plants typically don't have animal protein pathways and Amos has created that by modifying a few amino acids. As a result the seed yields 25% protein and 32% fatty acid.

As an added bonus the Safflower crop is climate-change adapted as it likes dry and hot area (good for California/ Australia).

Miruku’s approach can be compared to Nobell Foods in the US, which uses soy for extracting the protein. However, it is better to use safflower rather than soy to prevent allergens and lower the risk of spreading protein to other crops. Miruku started with soy but then switched to safflower given FDA's scrutiny of soy. Soy is widely consumed and cannot be risked to contain allergenic proteins.

Miruku and our investment in them has received widespread coverage via this TechCrunch article.

This funding round allows them to go from lab scale to open environment in the field and get license to plant these seeds in the field. Next step would be an FDA approval. 

NZVC is excited to support this fundamental innovation coming out of New Zealand that seeks to address the critical challenges in the dairy industry!

Best regards,

Mark Pavlyukovskyy, Ajay Gupta, and Glen Anderson