Roquette Ventures invests in Magellan Life Sciences Ltd

Roquette Ventures, a French investment company supporting pioneer innovations in food, nutrition and health, has announced its investment in Magellan Life Sciences Ltd, a UK biotech company that develops plant-inspired proteins through a fermentation process. The seed round was led by Roquette Ventures and completed with investments from US-based SOSV and three European business angels. This partnership aims at accelerating the market entry of new protein sweeteners.

Magellan Life Sciences Ltd has developed a unique proprietary expression and fermentation platform to produce new generations of protein sweeteners.

These protein sweeteners are promising proteins for the food and beverage industries. They taste almost identical to sucrose with a much higher sweetening power. Moreover, they have no undesirable aftertaste and are stable under a wide variety of thermal and chemical conditions. They contribute negligible calories at the intended levels of usage while still maintaining the sweetness profile required by the applications and formulations.

The current funding round will be used for optimisation and scaling up of the manufacturing process of the protein sweeteners.

Edouard Nuttin, general manager of Roquette Ventures, stated that “In a context of global health challenges such as the rise of sugar-related diseases like diabetes or obesity, Magellan’s protein sweeteners have a tremendous potential to meet the increasing demand of consumers for healthier alternatives to sugar. Roquette Ventures’ core mission is to invest in pioneer innovations for food, nutrition and health markets. When we heard about Magellan Life Sciences and its work on protein sweeteners, we found a total match with that mission and quickly decided to help accelerate the development of these products to an industrial scale.”

Abhiram Dukkipati, Co-founder and CEO of Magellan, said: “We are thrilled to have Roquette Ventures, SOSV and the angel investors invest in Magellan. With their varied backgrounds, each investor brings significant value to help guide us in our mission. There is a global emphasis on using plant-inspired proteins to meet food and beverage markets’ expectations. Within this theme, Magellan is addressing the important issue of sugar reduction by providing alternatives to carbohydrates with new protein sweeteners. This round of funding will allow us to expand our R&D team and scale our proprietary manufacturing process.”

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