Beyond Meat Inc. the leader of the plant-based meat market, has made U.S. stock market history with the best first day for an IPO (initial public offering).
The company that makes vegan burger patties and sausages closed its first day of public trading with a 163 percent spike in its shares, which translates to about $3.8 billion in market value.
Hot on Beyond Meat’s trail is its biggest competitor in the meatless meat game, Impossible Foods.
Last month, Impossible Food’s veggie sandwich, the Impossible Whopper, debuted in test markets at Burger King restaurants before going nationwide.
And now, investors are coming to enlarge Impossible Foods funding pool in a testament to their trust in its technology and the plant-based meat market as a whole.
Investors’ Mouths Water Over Impossible Foods’ Vegan Meat
If Beyond Meat is the first plant-based meat company to go through public trading, Impossible Foods beat them with the first meatless burger patty in the market.
Impossible Food’s Whopper, currently sold at three Burger King’s locations, will be rolled out throughout North America by the end of the year.
Ahead of a possible IPO, Impossible Foods is giving investing appetite for institutions and celebrities alike.
Even before its flagship product hits menus nationwide, Impossible Foods managed to raise another $300 million in its Series E Funding Round. This brings the startup’s total equity to $750 million and increases its market value to around $2 billion.
Despite investors clear interest, and Beyond Meat’s IPO, Impossible Foods says it’s not pressed to go public.
Impossible Foods CFO David Lee told Reuters:
“We believe in self-reliance. Being ready to go public is a priority for the company because we need to be operating at the highest level of rigor. But we are not in a rush, nor are we announcing an IPO filing… “I think their (Beyond Meat) IPO indicates that retail investors along with retail consumers are ready for something better than the meat they’ve been eating for decades.”
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Led by existing major investors Temasek and Horizons Ventures, Impossible Foods’ latest round of funding attracted new Institutional investors such as Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, Google Ventures, UBS, Viking Global Investors, Sailing Capital, and the Open Philanthropy Project.
Celebrities like Serena Williams, Jaden Smith, Jay-Z, Katy Perry, Trevor Noah, and others also reached for their wallets to invest in Impossible Foods meatless business.
On May 6, singer Katy Perry attended the 2019 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute in New York City, wearing a vegan burger costume which got Celine Dion very excited.
It’s clear to see that the future of meat is synthetic, which is great not just for animals, but our planet as a whole. The U.S market is currently leading the charge in the rise of synthetic meat, but it’s likely that other global markets will quickly follow suit.
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