Beyond Meat, a meat-substitute company that makes meatless protein products including “Beyond Burgers,” filed for an IPO with plans to raise $100m.
As more consumers prove willing to move on from meat, investors have pumped funding into several plant-based powerhouses in the past few years, but Beyond Meat is the first to go public.
Expanding Beyond vegans
Beyond Meat is the first vegan company to list on a US stock exchange, but it doesn’t want to be pigeonholed by ‘the v word’ (Beyond sells its products in the meat aisles of supermarkets for this exact reason).
Beyond Meat’s mission is to create meatless protein products tasty enough to appeal to vegans and carnivores alike.
Since the company’s 2009 founding, that vision has attracted investments from omnivores Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio, ex-McDonald’s CEO Don Thompson, and Tyson Foods.
Meat-free mania
The past year has been particularly protein-packed for Beyond: In January, the company inked a deal with TGI Fridays, and its revenue in the first 9 months of 2018 ($56.4m) is up 167% from last year.
But Beyond Meat isn’t even the biggest animal-free meat maker in the biz: Impossible Foods, started in 2011, has raised more than 3x as much money ($387.5m in funding to date) and has partnered with White Castle and others to offer beefless burgers in all 50 states.
With the market for meat substitutes expected to grow from $4.6B this year to $6.4B by 2023, Beyond Meat hopes to use its IPO funding to expand beyond the US.