In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.
Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.
Episode 48: Mewery
This episode features Roman Lauš, founder and CEO of Mewery (Czech Republic), a cultivated meat startup building a co-culture platform that combines animal and microbial cells to make pork and other products more efficiently. Roman shares how he pivoted fundraising strategy in a brutal market: from early validation by Big Idea Ventures and regional VCs, to surviving with bridges and stacking non-dilutive funding—culminating in a hard-won EIC Accelerator award after a 1.5-year grind.
He breaks down the real lessons: founders should invest their own capital, prove a fast proof-of-concept, differentiate deeply (their proprietary co-culture is the edge), and never bank on a verbal “yes.” We also get a candid look at why he’s still bullish on cell ag (costs plummeting, second-generation tech, traction over hype) and what Mewery needs next: collaborations with meat and food manufacturers to bring products to market.
Key Facts Mewery:
- Goal: To break down barriers to scaling and accelerating the cultivated meat industry.
- Recently raised €3M from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator, and from the Horizon Europe research program.
Alex’s Top Findings:
- Capital Stack v1: Validate, Then Amplify. After friends/founder money funded initial tests, Big Idea Ventures invested (~2022), triggering strong inbound and a total of ~€800k with local funds (Power Pro Ventures, Credo Ventures) and a small grant. “Big Idea Ventures… decided to invest in us, and this was the highlight of our company because we were the only startup from the Czech Republic who has ever been funded by this fund. We just released a press release, and the next day, I woke up to my inbox being full of not spam, but more than a hundred emails from investors and partners.”
- Market Reality: Believe Actions, Not ‘Yes’. Verbal enthusiasm ≠ capital; keep parallel processes alive until money is wired. “ I don’t believe in ‘Yes’ anymore. This is very sad because if you tell me yes, I think you mean yes, but maybe it’s my understanding of yes. It’s not their mistake, because they want to have you in the process. We actually hang on to one investor. We thought that was it, and it took six months. We were running out of funds, and I thought this was a done deal. I don’t need to look for more investors. So this is what I would change, and I think every experienced founder with fundraising would tell you the same.”
- Grant-First Strategy to Advance TRL. Mewery rebalanced away from VC chasing to grants (incl. EIC Accelerator), learning to write/rewrite applications, hiring an agency, and using the process to harden the R&D and commercialization roadmap. “ We reapplied for some of the grants , and with the EIC accelerator, we started very early . Everybody was telling us, ‘Guys, you are too early for that. You are not in this technical readiness.’ And we were not at that time, but I said, ” It doesn’t matter. We will grow into it. Let’s not postpone it.’ I had a gut feeling we needed to write it because, for us, it was very important to formulate and articulate our experiment, roadmap, and business strategy. Thanks to this agency, we basically reformulated and redone the whole strategy. The whole business development and the licensing model we have today.”
Link to Apple Podcast here.
Catch the full podcast series here.
