Motif FoodWorks
Foodtech / plant-basedUSA
💀 Dead / Bankrupt
Peak $1.23 BillionToday
~-100%
from peak
- 🦄Became a unicorn2021
- 📈Peak valuation$1.23 Billion ’21
- 💔Became a Unitard2024
- 💸Last valuationWiped out
🔥 Raised & burned
$345M
Total raised
$187K/day
Burned · 5.0y alive
Funding: AgFunder / Crunchbase
Current status
Shut down in 2024 after settling a multi-year IP lawsuit with Impossible Foods; sold its heme business to Impossible and wound down operations.
How it happened
Motif FoodWorks, spun out of Ginkgo Bioworks in 2019, engineered ingredients (notably a heme protein) to make plant-based meat taste better. It raised $343.5M from investors including Bill Gates and was valued at ~$1.23B in 2021 (PitchBook). After a costly multi-year IP fight with Impossible Foods and a souring alt-protein market, Motif settled with Impossible — selling it the heme business — and shut down in 2024.
Source: $226M Series B 2021 (~$1.23B post-money); shutdown 2024 (AgFunderNews)
