In a strange sequence of events, while consulting on business insights for Burger King some years ago, Rich Kelleman decided to go vegan.
Years later, when he and his wife got a dog, Kelleman was faced with a similar dilemma over its diet.
“I struggled with the tension to feed our dog meat,” he said.
So, Kelleman began exploring solutions for providing identical meat proteins to his pets, without the impacts associated with pet food production.
During his research, he saw that companies on the human food side were attempting a similar feat and was fascinated by the potential.
“The more that I learned, it struck me that there would be a clearer path for the pet food category,” he said.
While humans are concerned with texture, taste and presentation, dogs don’t care quite as much about that, Kelleman realized.
So, without a background in biotech or food production, Kelleman began to develop the concept for Bond Pet Foods. In 2017, he brought on Pernilla Audibert as co-founder and CTO and officially launched the startup in Boulder.
As it develops its animal-free and protein-rich pet food, Bond announced today that it has raised a $1.2 million seed round led by Lever VC, a venture capital fund specializing in alternative protein investments.
Bond employs the same fermentation technology that is used to produce ingredients for cheese making or insulin for diabetics. And they adjust the process to harvest high-quality meat proteins like chicken, turkey, beef, pork and fish, but without the animal.
Animal muscle protein genes are taken from a farm animal and added to a microbe such as yeast, then put into a fermentation tank and fed simple sugars, vitamins and minerals. This produces proteins that are nutritionally identical to their meat counterparts without the impacts associated with traditional food production.
This funding round will help Bond accelerate its development as it prepares to launch its flagship protein-packed dog treat bar early next year.
The product won’t be animal derived at first, instead drawing from pure yeast protein. Kelleman said this is intentional, as the company slowly rolls out its products to help the public acclimate.
“The reason we’re starting there is to educate the public about our methods,” he said. “Then we will have an audience we’ve built trust with.”
Kelleman compared the company’s plan to that of Impossible Foods, the company responsible for the meatless burger that can now be found on the menu of Burger King, Red Robin and more.
Impossible burgers were first introduced to select restaurants in 2016, as the company built a loyal following before its massive national expansion this year.
“Once they started to get in the public sphere, it was an easier conversion for the everyday person to try it,” he said. “Our path will follow a similar trajectory.”
Bond plans to launch a daily pet food for dogs and cats in the coming years, relying on the company’s own chicken protein solution as the basis for the recipe.
As he’s built the company in Boulder, Kelleman is thankful for the support and guidance he’s received from the community. He has also experienced firsthand the challenges associated with finding the right space to launch your startup.
“Once we as a team decided that this was the right path with the technology and wanted to charge ahead, there wasn’t a turnkey space that we could move into,” he said.
The three-person company has now settled into a lab space in Boulder as it prepares to launch its first product in early 2020.
