Aquaculture-focused investment firm Aqua-Spark plowed capital into Singaporean lab-grown shrimp producer Shiok Meats in a $12.6 million Series A round.

Other investors in the round include Enterprise Singapore's investment arm SEEDS Capital, Japan's Real Tech Fund, Korean global tech investing family office Irongrey, South Korea's Yellowdog Empowers Fund, and others

The capital will finance Shiok Meats's commercial pilot plant, where its plans to launch its minced shrimp product in 2022.

In July, Shiok Meats raised $3 million (€2.6 million) in a bridge funding round led by UK-based investor Agronomics, US-based investment firm VegInvest, angel fund Impact Venture and UAE-based Mindshift Capital Fund.

The Singaporean company successfully cultivated a shrimp product last year, which was sampled in Asian shrimp dish dumplings.

The startup was established in 2018 by Sandhya Sriram and Ka Yi Ling to battle the unsustainable nature of traditional shrimp farming especially as Asia's seafood consumption ramps up.

Last year, Shiok Meats completed a $4.6 million (€4.1 million) seed round supported by Big Idea Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on meat alternatives and backed by food giant Tyson.

Shiok Meats is also working on developing cell-based crustaceans, namely crab and lobster.

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