Cultivated beef company Aleph Farms and Singapore’s Mottainai Food Tech each received S$1 million from the 2026 Sustainable Protein Growth Stage Grant at the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit on 28 October. The programme is run by the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Protein at the National University of Singapore and Enterprise Singapore, with money from the Bezos Earth Fund.
At a glance
- S$1M per company: S$500,000 from the Bezos Earth Fund and S$500,000 from Enterprise Singapore
- 3 tranches at least, paid against agreed milestones
- 30 months maximum payout period
- 2 of 3 growth-stage awards made; the call allowed up to three
IN Food, 2 November 2026; FoodNavigator, 19 January and 30 October 2026.
How the grant pays
The call, announced in January, targeted companies at technology readiness levels 7 to 9 and drew on a US$3 million Bezos Earth Fund grant, half of it for up to three growth-stage winners. IN Food reports that payments come in at least three tranches over as long as 30 months and that the programme includes an equity component. Neither the organisers nor the companies have published the equity terms.
Two routes to Singapore production
Aleph Farms is moving its cultivated thin-cut beef, cleared by Singapore earlier in 2026, into production at contract manufacturer Cell Agritech and targets a foodservice launch in the first half of 2027. It has not attached a capacity figure to the award. Mottainai ferments okara, the soy pulp left from tofu and soy milk, on solid substrates into an ingredient called Jiro Meat at its Singapore pilot plant, and sells blends that replace part of the meat in a recipe.
What this means for investors
S$1 million in milestone tranches is small next to a cultivated meat build-out, so the award matters more as a signal than as capital: Singapore’s agencies have backed two production plans at once, one capital-heavy and one running on a food-factory side-stream. For co-investors, the tranche milestones are the useful document. They set dated technical and commercial targets that a later round can be priced against, and the equity component means the state side may hold a stake on the cap table.
Checklist: a co-investor’s questions on a milestone grant
Ask for the milestone schedule and the amount attached to each tranche.
Ask for the equity terms and whether they convert in the next priced round.
For contract manufacturing, ask for the capacity reserved and the take-or-pay terms.
For side-stream feedstocks, ask how much okara is secured and at what price.
Sources and reporting
- IN Food: Aleph Farms and Mottainai win protein scale-up grants, 2 November 2026
- FoodNavigator: Aleph Farms among Bezos-backed protein innovators targeting scale, 30 October 2026
- FoodNavigator: Million-dollar Sustainable Protein grant aims to fast-track market entry, 19 January 2026
- Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit: Sustainable protein grant awards and showcase, 28 October 2026
Reporting note: Desk report on trade coverage and the summit programme. FoodEdge has not seen the grant agreements or spoken to either company.
AI tools supported source research and drafting during the editorial process.
