A $6 million venture capital infusion is helping Planetarians, a San Francisco–based company creating whole cuts of plant-based protein, move to its next phase of commercial production.
Aleh Manchuliantsau and chef Max Barnthouse founded Planetarians in 2013 as a nutritional drink company. They funded it with a mere $500 and sold 1 million servings, but they were also competing with the likes of Soylent, which had Andreessen Horowitz money behind it, Manchuliantsau told TechCrunch.
“The competition was tough,” he explained. “They started to undercut us trying to eliminate us out of the market using their investment. I started thinking, how can I strike back in a way that cannot be mitigated by another cash injection?”
Looking at the cost of the ingredients the comp...
