Today we're launching Cellbase. It's a B2B marketplace built for one purpose: making it easier for cultivated meat companies to source what they need to grow.
No hype. No grand claims. Just infrastructure the industry needed yesterday.
The Problem Was Obvious
Over the past 12 months building across the Cultigen Group portfolio, the same pattern kept showing up. Every cultivated meat company we spoke to was wasting time on the same procurement headache.
Finding suppliers for bioreactors, growth media, scaffolds, or cell lines meant:
- Googling through pages of pharma suppliers who didn't understand food applications
- Chasing quotes via email for weeks
- Navigating catalogues with 300,000 products where 299,950 were irrelevant
- Building relationships from scratch every time
The market is growing fast. $9.3 billion in 2024, projected to hit nearly $11 billion in 2025. The EU alone could contribute €80 billion by 2050.
But the supply chain infrastructure? Fragmented at best.
Why Marketplaces Work Here
Procurement in cultivated meat looks different from traditional lab supply. Companies need:
- Products validated for food production, not pharma
- Suppliers who understand scale-up timelines
- Transparency on pricing and lead times
- Access to specialists, not generalists
That specificity creates value for a vertical marketplace.
What We Built
Cellbase brings together suppliers across the full production workflow:
Cells – Bovine, porcine, avian, and seafood cell lines, plus banking solutions
Media – Basal media, growth factors, supplements, and serum alternatives
Bioreactors – From benchtop R&D systems to commercial production scale
Scaffolds – Edible materials, microcarriers, hydrogels, and 3D structures
Equipment – Incubators, centrifuges, microscopes, and sterilisation systems
Sensors – Process monitoring, cell tracking, and analytical instruments
Processing – Harvesting, filtration, and concentration equipment
Consumables – Flasks, filters, tubing, and single-use components
Every listing includes application context, regulatory notes, and compatibility information. If you're working on cultivated beef at pilot scale, you see what's relevant. Nothing else.
First Movers Win in Fragmented Markets
We're not the first B2B marketplace. But no one built this for cultivated meat specifically. That matters more than you'd think.
When you're building cell culture workflows for food production instead of drug development, the requirements shift. Food-grade certifications. Cost structures optimised for commercial production, not research budgets. Suppliers who understand that your bioreactor needs to run continuously for months, not days.
General platforms can't deliver that context. Cellbase can.
Built to Scale With the Industry
Right now, most cultivated meat companies are in R&D or early pilot phases. They need access to validated suppliers without spending six months on sourcing.
As the industry scales to commercial production, procurement complexity increases. Larger order volumes, tighter compliance requirements, more sophisticated logistics.
For buyers, it's one platform, one login, one consolidated procurement process.
Why Now
Three things converged to make this the right time:
- Regulatory momentum – FDA approvals for UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat in the US. Singapore's early framework. The EU moving toward clear pathways. Regulatory clarity drives investment, which drives demand for infrastructure.
- Commercial-scale projects – Companies like Believer Meats and Aleph Farms are building production facilities. That shifts procurement from "we need a few flasks" to "we need 50,000-litre bioreactors and reliable supply chains."
- Supplier maturity – Specialised providers like Multus Bio, BioBetter, and Gelatex now offer cultivated meat-specific products at commercial scale. Five years ago, that market didn't exist. Today, it does.
When you combine regulatory progress, production scale-up, and supply-side readiness, you get the conditions for infrastructure platforms to work.
What Happens Next
Cellbase launches today with foundational supplier partnerships across all eight categories. We're onboarding more suppliers weekly, with focus on companies offering food-grade, scalable, and commercially proven solutions.
For cultivated meat companies, the value is immediate: find what you need faster, compare options in one place, and get back to building your product instead of chasing quotes.
For suppliers, it's distribution into a high-growth vertical with qualified buyers who need exactly what you make.
If you're building in cultivated meat and need to source materials or equipment, start there. If you're a supplier looking to reach this market, get in touch.
We're building the procurement layer the industry needs. One curated supplier at a time.
