Cultivating the modern biotech startup

It was a momentous day for the company and the team who have worked tirelessly to get us to this point. It brought with it an immense sense of pride, not just for the achievement but for what we have become as a company on the whole. 

Meatly is, first and foremost, a mission-driven company. With backing from Agronomics, it was started by myself and our CSO Helder Cruz, who has deep biopharma expertise and previously worked at Mosa Meat, one of the first cultivated meat companies. Helder has allowed us to rapidly accelerate our R&D and establish ourselves as one of the leading cultivated meat companies globally. Alongside this expertise, we’ve built an incredible team that exemplifies the modern UK startup and the importance of getting great people on board. 

Experience & Exuberance 

Helder and I have extensive experience in BioTech and FoodTech. We’re complemented by an incredible team of nine scientists who are the engine room of the entire process. They are a young and incredibly innovative team. The average age is 30, from nine countries, 60% of who are female. We’ve also had 100% retention after probation since we began.

Part of the reason I began starting companies was because I had specific ideas about building culture, hiring, and creating an inclusive and diverse workplace. We’re on a continual process to do this at Meatly. From the early days of Meatly there were some concreate foundations we put in place, these included the team creating our values, continually training and discussing how we communicate with each other, Helder and I having regular 1-1s with each of the team, and at the heart of it all - a deep respect and trust in everyone we hire. At Meatly, we pride ourselves on being able to inspire young innovators, and the benefits we’ve seen have been incredible. 

Cultured Meat Culture 

As mentioned, our company is purpose-driven. Whilst we endeavour to bring people on board who have the experience to help make a difference, we prioritise people who want to make that difference in the first place. It means we’ve created a team deeply passionate about our mission to make kinder meat and our planet more sustainable. We’ve benefited from London, and the UK’s, incredible biotech and science educational institutes, which can hone some truly spectacular talent that we’re incredibly proud to have brought on board from Imperial, Kings, LSE and many others. We’ve also benefited from launching the company at a time where people were vividly aware of our need to create a more sustainable food chain, and were actively looking for ways to achieve this.

Fast and Focussed 

As a lean startup in a nascent space, getting distracted or sidetracked from our ambitious goals is easy. That’s why when we focus on a target, we go all in. We talk frequently about what we’re not doing, and what else we can avoid doing so that we can focus on the critical factors. It’s this approach that has led us to several key developments, and world-firsts, which have led the way in our sector, such as: 

• Development of a world-first protein-free medium (the nutrients which allow the growth of cultivated meat) which costs as little as £1 a litre to produce 
• Securing the first regulatory approval for a cultivated meat company in the UK & EU 
• Launching the very first feeding trials for cultivated pet food, which showed incredible results

For a company in its infancy, any of these achievements above would be enough to give ourselves a pat on the back. Achieving all of them is a testament to the incredible hard work, dedication and innovation-centric mindset we work with every day. As we continue to grow we also continue to consider and adapt our culture and approach, and I’m sure there will be many more lessons to learn.

For now, 2025 looks set to be another definitive year for cultivated meat and Meatly following the fantastic progress this year. I like to think that our creative and fresh approach to running modern biotech in this country, utilising earned experience and matched with the ambition of youth, has helped shape this progress and is driving this country towards a future with a kinder, more sustainable and ethical food industry not just for our pets, but for everyone.

Owen Ensor is the Founding CEO of Meatly.