Melt&Marble Secures €7M to Scale Designer Fats in Beauty and Food

• Round led by Industrifonden with strategic backing from the EIC Fund, Beiersdorf, Valio, Catalyze Capital and Chalmers Ventures.
• Latest financing adds €10M, including €2.76M in EU grants 
• Funding to scale production and launch first ingredients in personal care and food markets

Gothenburg, 8 December 2025 – Melt&Marble, the Swedish biotech company using precision fermentation to produce designer fats, has raised €7.3 million (80 MSEK) in Series A funding, to scale production and bring its first ingredients to market. Designed to deliver enhanced functionality, taste and even health outcomes, the company’s ingredients offer sustainable, high-performance alternatives to conventional oils and fats for use in personal care and food applications.

The €7 million Series A round was led by Swedish deeptech investor Industrifonden, with participation from the European Commission’s European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund and strategic partners Beiersdorf and Valio, key players in the personal care and food sectors, respectively. Additional backing came from Chalmers Ventures and Catalyze Capital. The EIC Accelerator also supported with an additional €2.5 million grant last year, bringing latest funding to a total of €10M over the past year. The investment marks a pivotal moment for Melt&Marble, signalling strong cross-sector validation of its technology platform and commercial strategy. With investors spanning venture capital, industry, and European innovation policy, the round brings together deep expertise and networks critical for scaling precision fermentation solutions.

“This investment marks a major milestone for Melt&Marble as we transition from R&D to commercialisation. With key scalability milestones already achieved and strategic partners onboard, we’re entering the market with the capabilities and confidence to deliver real impact. Our vision has always been to deliver more sustainable, high-performance ingredients, and this round brings us significantly closer to that goal,”said Anastasia Krivoruchko, CEO of Melt&Marble.

Tobias Elmquist, Senior Investment Director at Industrifonden, said: “Melt&Marble has achieved an impressive level of technical and commercial readiness for a company at this stage. Their ability to engineer functional fats through precision fermentation addresses a clear and growing demand across industries. We’re proud to lead this round and support a team combining scientific depth with strong execution to bring sustainable, high-performance ingredients to market.”

The market opportunity for oils, fats and lipids relevant for Melt&Marble’s platform is currently worth more than $100 billion, covering personal care and beauty, meat and dairy alternatives, chocolate confectionery, bakery and specialised nutrition. As brands in food and personal care race to meet sustainability targets and consumer demand for high performance ingredients, fats are a critical piece of the puzzle. Traditional fats like palm, coconut, and animal-based sources often struggle with performance, supply volatility, and environmental criteria. Melt&Marble’s precision fermentation platform offers animal-free, tailored fat structures that unlock superior functionality, from texture and mouthfeel in food to enhanced skin-feel and bio-activity in cosmetics.

Thomas Cresswell, CBO of Melt&Marble said “We’re entering a new era where fats and lipids are no longer seen as commodities alone, but also as precision ingredients that can drive performance, improve health, and support sustainability. With the support of our visionary partners, we are now in a position to bring this new generation of ingredients to market, designed with intention to meet the demands of modern food and personal care. The message from our partners has been consistent: the future belongs to ingredients that deliver on functionality, impact and cost. That is exactly what we are building.”

By engineering fats from the molecule up, the company can deliver cost-competitive, locally produced ingredients that meet both technical demands and sustainability goals. Strategic backing from Beiersdorf and Valio reflects the strong product-market fit across these high-performance sectors.

Ascan Voswinckel, Head of Venture Capital at Beiersdorf said “Melt&Marble is addressing an important challenge in the personal care industry, with its advanced innovative precision-fermentation technology. With consumer interest in more sustainable and responsible skincare products growing, Beiersdorf is pleased to invest in Melt&Marble, and support their highly committed, science-driven team as they aim to advance sustainability across multiple industries.”

“Food produced through cellular agriculture will be a significant part of our future food system” said Susanna Kallio, Vice President at Valio. “To advance cellular agriculture solutions, collaboration between established companies and startups is essential. Melt&Marble’s designer fats, produced via cellular agriculture, are full of potential for developing new, interesting products for the store shelf and injecting dynamic new concepts into our food system. We are excited to support Melt&Marble in developing and scaling their solutions.”

Melt&Marble’s product pipeline spans fats designed to unlock functionality across multiple categories, including alternative meat and dairy, bakery, chocolate, skincare, and haircare. The new funding will take Melt&Marble from demo to market-ready, with its first ingredients set for commercial launch in personal care applications in 2026. Production volumes will be delivered through an existing commercial manufacturing partner, ensuring capex-light scalability. Alongside a focus on Europe, the company is also preparing for food market entry in the US, where regulatory pathways allow for faster deployment, and eyeing other geographies for further expansion. Commercial collaboration and distribution discussions are underway and Melt&Marble is actively working on co-development products with partners in preparation for a commercial launch.

Chalmers Ventures Investment Director Björn Westman, said: “Melt &Marble exemplifies how deeptech and science-driven entrepreneurship can transform personal care and global food systems to solve one of humanity’s biggest challenges. By combining cutting-edge biotechnology with a clear sustainability mission, they are redefining what’s possible in the future of food.”

Svetoslava Georgieva, Chair of the EIC Fund Board, added: “Melt&Marble’s precision-fermentation approach to designer fats offers sustainable, high-performance alternatives for food and personal care. This Series A round is a strong endorsement of their technology. The EIC Fund is proud to support their scale-up and market entry."

The funding news comes as Melt&Marble continues to explore opportunities with industry players across multiple regions, buoyed by strong application results and major advances in bioprocess efficiency. These achievements mark the company’s next phase of growth, as it moves toward commercialising precision-designed fats and lipids and contributing to a more sustainable future for food and personal care.

About Melt&Marble

Melt&Marble is a pioneering company dedicated to enabling the transition towards a more sustainable future by revolutionising the production of fats. Using advanced microbial engineering and precision fermentation, Melt&Marble produces tailored fats from simple feedstocks, without relying on unsustainable animal or plant sources. These next-generation ingredients are designed for superior sustainability, performance, and health profiles across industries.

The company’s platform, built on over a decade of research and protected by a robust IP portfolio, enables the creation of both bio-identical and novel fats. Melt&Marble’s initial focus is on delivering functional and sustainable fat solutions to the alternative protein and personal care sectors.

About Industrifonden

Industrifonden is Sweden’s Venture Capital Fund looking for unique, scalable innovation that has a meaningful impact on our society. Industrifonden manages more than SEK 5 billion and invest in early-stage companies, from seed to A-round funding with a reach across the Nordics. The investment focus includes specialized technologies and businesses within Deep Tech, Life Science and Transformative Tech. Industrifonden has an evergreen structure which allows a long-term focus on value creation. Read more at industrifonden.com

About EIC Fund

The European Innovation Council Fund from the European Commission is an agnostic Fund: it invests across all technologies and verticals, and all EU countries and countries associated to Horizon Europe. It provides the investment component of the EIC Accelerator blended finance. The European Investment Bank acts as investment adviser to the EIC Fund.

The EIC Fund aims to fill a critical financing gap and its main purpose is to support companies in the development and commercialisation of disruptive technologies, bridging with and crowding in market players, and further sharing risk by building a large network of capital providers and strategic partners suitable for co-investments and follow-on funding.

The Fund pays particular attention to the empowerment and support of female founders as well as the ambition to reduce the innovation divide among EU countries. Read more: https://eic.ec.europa.eu/eic-fund_en.

About Chalmers Ventures

Chalmers Ventures is a leading Tech Investor and Venture Builder in the Nordics, dedicated to creating global growth companies and taking new technology from lab to market. The focus is on university spin-outs and deep tech. We employ a unique dual approach that integrates venture creation with tech investments, harnessing the potential of new research and deep tech within Chalmers. Our expertise lies in initiating and nurturing companies from groundbreaking research, ensuring a robust pipeline of high-quality ventures in which we invest and act as active owners. Our involvement extends through the entire company lifecycle until exit, with the aim to generate substantial business success and make a positive global impact.

About Beiersdorf

Beiersdorf has stood for innovative skin care and pioneering skin research for over 140 years. The company headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, employs more than 22,000 people worldwide. In the fiscal year 2024 Beiersdorf generated sales of €9.9 billion and an operating result (EBIT excluding special factors) of €1.4 billion. Leading international brands such as NIVEA (the world’s no. 1 skin care brand*), Eucerin, La Prairie, and Hansaplast are cherished by millions of people around the world every day. Renowned brands such as Aquaphor, Coppertone, and Chantecaille complement the extensive portfolio in the Consumer Business Segment. Through its wholly owned subsidiary tesa SE, Beiersdorf is a globally leading manufacturer of technical adhesive tapes and provides self-adhesive solutions to industry, craft businesses, and consumers. Guided by the purpose ‘Care Beyond Skin’, Beiersdorf pursues an ambitious sustainability agenda with the target to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2045 and aims to champion a more inclusive society. Additional information can be found at www.beiersdorf.com.

* Source: Euromonitor International Limited; NIVEA by umbrella brand name in the categories Body Care, Face Care, and Hand Care; in retail value terms, 2024.

About Valio

Valio’s mission is to create wellbeing and taste sensations in a responsible way. We make tasty products from milk and many other ingredients; we bring delightful tastes, variety and joy to the food table. We also carry out important roles in society: ensuring food security, enhancing public health and improving animal welfare are some examples of our impacts. In line with our mission, we are making life better.

3,400 Finnish dairy farmers own Valio through cooperatives. Valio has 4,200 professionals at work from different sectors and we listen to consumers with our more than 100 years of experience. Nobel Laureate A.I. Virtanen’s legacy continues to live on with us. When he headed Valio’s laboratories, the concept of improving the wellbeing of people took root as our guiding principle. We turn science into products that make life better. Consumers in more than 50 countries enjoy Valio products, and we have 350 patents for our innovations around the world. We are Finland’s biggest food exporter and a trailblazer for the whole food industry. Valio’s sales in 2023 were EUR 2,3 billion.

About Catalyze Capital

Catalyze Capital is a venture capital firm investing in early-stage companies that apply science and technology to develop innovations that will positively impact people’s lives and the planet’s health. Operating from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Catalyze Capital focuses on European companies active in high-tech sectors, including the Life Science, Sustainable and Deep Tech sectors.