CellQua, a South Korea-based developer of fish-cultured meat, announced today that it has raised seed funding from impact investor Sopoong Ventures. The amount is undisclosed.

CellQua develops marine cultured meat using marine animal cells and develops various products utilizing cell culture technology. The company was founded in August 2021 by CEO Lee Sang-yoon, a PhD in fisheries, and Lee Sang-yup, a computer vision engineer. 

Cellqua has secured the original technology required to develop cell culture technology and cell culture medium, which are essential for the production of cultured meat. It has completed patent applications for ‘Cell isolation and culture method specialized for marine animals’ and ‘Development of bovine fetal serum substitute additive’ and succeeded in developing its own culture medium.

Cellqua is developing its own cultured meat by securing cells from six types of marine animals such as eel, squid, and loach. 

Lee Sang-yoon and Lee Sang-yup, Co-CEOs of Cellqua, said, “We started Cellqua to solve the problem of oceans polluted by microplastics and wastewater and fishery resources destroyed by overfishing. We aim to commercialize cell culture products by 2025. We will continue to acquire cell culture technology and materials from other six species of marine animal cells.”

Yoon Min Cho, Partner at Sopoong Ventures, said, “Cultured meat is mostly focused on beef, pork, and chicken, with fish and crustacean startups emerging overseas. Cellqua is a technology team that can develop its own cultured meat with the expertise of each representative. While the market for fish cultured meat is still nascent and will take a long time to develop and commercialize, we expect the team to make progress in the lab-scale stage, including producing cultured meat prototypes and owning molecular biological analysis equipment.”