Upside Foods
Upside Foods grows lab-cultivated chicken and beef with US regulatory clearance to sell it.
On the record
Checkpoint: Believer Meats bankruptcy auction closes; Upside's $50M stalking-horse bid for the facility either wins or fails
The call
Upside Foods has the legal right and the lab tech to sell cultivated meat, but no proven route yet to sell enough of it to matter.
Upside Foods grows meat in factories instead of raising animals, and has regulatory approval and proprietary technology that competitors would struggle to rebuild from scratch. However, the entire lab-grown meat industry has lost investor confidence, a similar company called Believer Meats went bankrupt despite having the same approvals and hundreds of millions of dollars, and Upside has not confirmed any actual sales to stores or made money yet. The biggest factor to watch is whether Upside can acquire Believer's failed facility cheaply enough to cut costs significantly, or whether buying it becomes a money-losing burden that speeds up Upside's own struggles.
Why
01
AI pressure: None apparent. AI is not a direct threat here; the fight is over cell-culture cost curves and regulatory access, not software. Could AI do the core job? Unlikely.
02
Bigger players: Tyson Foods and Cargill. Both are existing investors who could pick up Upside's IP or plant cheaply if the company falters, rather than competing outright. Could a giant copy it? Probably.
03
What protects it. FDA/USDA clearances, proprietary cell lines, and a built EPIC production facility that a new entrant can't quickly copy.
What would change this call
Whether Upside's $50M stalking-horse bid for Believer Meats' assets closes by Aug 5, 2026. Shows if Upside can secure added production capacity cheaply or absorbs a cash drain.
Any new priced equity round announced after the April 2022 Series C. Shows whether investors still believe in cultivated meat's near-term viability.
Lucius Labs discloses material ARR from biotech media customers. Shows whether diversification revenue can fund the company while cultivated meat scales.
Any new priced equity round announced after the April 2022 Series C. Shows whether investors still believe in cultivated meat's near-term viability.
Lucius Labs discloses material ARR from biotech media customers. Shows whether diversification revenue can fund the company while cultivated meat scales.
Key numbers
- $400M raised in Series C, no priced round since
- Believer Meats, a peer with equal clearances, went bankrupt
- Cultivated-meat VC funding down about 93% since 2021
Named risks
- No new priced equity round since April 2022 amid 93% sector-wide VC funding collapse by 2025.
- Closest peer Believer Meats went bankrupt in December 2025 despite equal regulatory clearance and $390M raised.
- Unit economics unproven; no confirmed retail sales and cultivated chicken remains far costlier than commodity chicken.
- State-level bans expanding; lost 11th Circuit appeal on Florida ban March 23, 2026.
- Believer Meats facility acquisition could become a cash drain if it fails to deliver cost advantage.
Rivals, as read in July 2026
| Rival | Direction | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Believer Meats | gaining on | Peer collapsed Dec 2025 with $390M raised; Upside bid $50M for its facility, approved June 2, 2026 |
| Good Meat (Eat Just) | contesting | Only other US company with USDA/FDA cultivated chicken clearance, per Food Dive, July 2, 2024 |
| Vow (Australia) | gaining on | Vow cut about one third of staff in early 2025 amid sector-wide contraction |
| Tyson Foods and Cargill | contesting | Both are existing investors from the 2022 Series C, positioned to acquire IP or facilities cheaply if Upside falters |
| Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat | contesting | Adjacent plant-based rivals, not direct substitutes since they use plant protein not cultivated cells |
Questions people ask
- Is Upside Foods profitable in 2026?
- Upside Foods does not publicly disclose revenue or profit figures as of July 21, 2026. No confirmed retail sales exist, and the company launched a life-sciences spin-off, Lucius Labs, in January 2026 specifically to generate near-term revenue outside cultivated meat, suggesting the core business is not yet self-sustaining.
- Has Upside Foods raised new funding recently?
- No priced equity round has been publicly reported since its $400M Series C closed in April 2022, which valued the company at roughly $1 billion. As of trueup.io data dated June 30, 2026, that valuation still dates to 2022 with no confirmed new round since.
- Is Upside Foods laying off employees?
- Yes. Upside Foods cut 16 jobs in February 2024, 26 in July 2024, and made further unspecified cuts in March 2025, per vegconomist reporting from March 24, 2025. Headcount trackers show volatility since a 2021-2022 peak, with mid-2026 estimates ranging 150 to 229 employees.
- Could AI replace what Upside Foods does?
- Unlikely to replace the core business. Upside Foods is a biomanufacturing company whose moat rests on proprietary cell lines, patented media formulations, physical bioreactor infrastructure, and FDA/USDA regulatory clearances, none of which AI can replicate; AI's role is limited to assisting cell-line and bioprocess optimization.
- Who is Upside Foods' biggest competitor and are they winning?
- Its closest US peer, Believer Meats, ceased US operations in December 2025 after raising $390 million despite holding full regulatory clearance equal to Upside's. Upside then submitted a $50M stalking horse bid for Believer's Wilson, NC facility, approved by a North Carolina court on June 2, 2026, with the auction extended to August 5, 2026.
- Does Upside Foods sell cultivated meat in stores?
- No confirmed retail-shelf sales have been reported as of mid-2026. Its cultivated chicken has appeared only in limited foodservice settings, such as a monthly dinner partnership with Bar Crenn in San Francisco (ended by early 2024) and a June 2024 pop-up tasting event in Miami.
Timeline
- 2026-07-23AgFunderNews reports Believer Meats auction deadline shifted, Upside's $50M bid not final
- 2026-06-02NC Business Court approves Upside's $50M stalking horse bid for Believer Meats plant
- 2026-03-2311th Circuit upholds Florida cultivated-meat ban, denies Upside's injunction appeal
- 2026-01-22Upside Foods launches life-sciences spin-off Lucius Labs
- 2026-01-01MrBeast YouTube factory tour video reportedly draws over 60 million views
- 2025-12-01Peer Believer Meats ceases US operations despite $390M raised and full clearance
- 2025-10-18Upside acquires cultivated-meat patents from defunct SciFi Foods
- 2025-03-24Third round of layoffs and restructuring reported by vegconomist
- 2024-07-02Second layoff round (26 employees) reported by Food Dive
- 2022-04-21Upside Foods raises $400M Series C, reaching roughly $1B valuation
Revision history
25 July 2026
First assessed. Losing its protection. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.
In the same band
Sources
- UPSIDE Foods
- CB Insights
- PR Newswire (2022-04-21)
- trueup.io (2026-06-30)
- The Motley Fool (2026-07-21)
- Datanyze
- Food Dive (2024-07-02)
- cultivated-x.com (2026-06-28)
- TipRanks (2026-07-05)
- Built In SF
- vegconomist (2025-03-24)
- AgFunderNews (2025-03-21)