New Age uses animal cells to create slaughter-free “cultivated meat.”

Berkeley-based New Age Meats, which manufactures slaughter-free “cultivated meat” from animal cells, announced this month that it has acquired $2.7 million in seed-round funding.

Founded in 2018 and affiliated with IndieBio’s accelerator program, New Age Meats aims to create technology that will permit the making of slaughter-free real meat via automation, stem-cell research, and bioreactor optimization.

“Our first pork sausages were made from a few cells from a pig named Jessie,” decares the company’s web site.

“This funding enables us to grow our team, invest in automation equipment, and iterate our unique cultivators that we design in-house,” said New Age Meats CEO and founder Brian Spears.

According to a press release, the seed round was led by New York-based ff Venture Capital.

“As a firm, we focus on transformative technologies and visionary founders,” said ff partner AJ Plotkin.

“We’ve found that in Brian and the team at New Age Meats. We are confident that cultivated meat will be part of the food economy long-term.”

New Age Meats moved into its Berkeley lab facilities recently, and is currently expanding its science and engineering teams while developing products expected to arrive in stores within the coming years.

“We can’t wait to share tasty, sustainable cultivated meat with avid meat eaters,” Spears said.