How Impossible Burger's 'simple' vision won $400 million in funding — and backing from Bill Gates via CNBCMakeIt
When Pat Brown was working in his research lab in 2009, he had"zero" intention of starting a business — much less one that would win United Nations backing and investment from the likes of Microsoft founder Bill Gates."I basically decided I was going to look for the most important problem that I could have the opportunity of solving," he told CNBC Make It.
Meat production is considered by far one of the world's greatest contributors to climate change, not only for the level of greenhouse gas it produces, but also the water and land consumption it requires. However, despite growing awareness around the issue, Brown noted that education had done little to curb consumers' insatiable appetites for meat.
Having developed that technology, Brown said his company had to be the one to get it out to burger lovers — in spite of his own lack of business experience.Fortunately for Brown, however, investors saw something in his proposition. Over the years, the business has racked up $396 million from backers including Bill Gates, Google Ventures and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing's Horizons Ventures.
After several years of iteration, in January 2019, the company unveiled a new version of its flagship product, dubbed the Impossible Burger 2.0. In addition to containing 30 percent less salt, 40 percent less saturated fat and fewer calories, it also replaced its core ingredient, wheat, with soy protein, making it gluten-free.
"Burgers have always been featured; we wanted to be a bit different from the rest," said Chef Robin Ho of Prive, who has re-imagined the ground beef substitute as a Singapore-inspired Impossible Satay Slider and an Impossible Meatball Spaghetti .Impossible Foods' targeted global expansion is part of Brown's wider strategy to demonstrate the product's versatility beyond the classic American burger.
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