Sunfed chief executive says investors failed to back the “chicken-free chicken” start-up as the plant-based meat craze falls out of favour.
BlackBird-backed start-up Sunfed is officially closing its doors with the “chicken-free chicken” start-up’s chief executive Shama Sukul Lee saying investors, including the Australian venture capital behemoth, had written off her company.
Sukul Lee said Sunfed managed to get through “COVID hell” but that the company needed a capital injection.“Those COVID years are a blur,” she said. “There was one crisis after another with staff shortages, supply chain disruptions and skyrocketing costs.” “Sunfed’s existing venture capital investors were no longer interested in supporting the business,” she said.We ran very lean for far too long, with not much resources for growth activities such as distribution and marketing,” Sukul Lee added.Sunfed was one of a flurry of alternative meat start-ups to share in tens of millions of dollars in venture capital funding over the past five years.
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