American meal substitute Soylent got another large sum of money to go to supermarkets and cafes.

Soylent, which makes substitute food, recently received a round B 50 million financing led by Google Ventures.

With this financing, Soylent has now raised a total of $74 million. With the new money, Soylent will be used to expand the global market and promote its food substitutes in supermarkets and cafes offline.

Soylent has not yet announced its offline distribution channels, and its food substitutes can only be bought on its website and Amazon.

However, on Wednesday, Soylent's CEO Rob Rhinehart mentioned in an interview that he wanted to make Soylent as common as coffee.

Soylent substitute food and beverage products

So far, the company has launched a portable bottled version of the substitute drink, an energy bar and meal substitute powder that can provide the energy that adults need every day.

Soylent substitute meal products

But it hasn't been easy over the past year.

Food safety problems occurred more than a month after Soylent launched the energy bar in August last year. Last September, users began to report that they were not feeling well after eating energy bars. Soylent recalled the rest of its energy bars from users last October.

In addition, its meal substitute powder was accused by the nonprofit As You Sow last year of excessive levels of harmful metals, which could cause damage to the kidneys, liver and bone marrow. In November last year, Soylent stopped selling substitute powder products because of food safety problems.

In response to these negative news, Soylent currently says that the sales of its products have not been affected much. Its net income doubled in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, and people familiar with the company said Soylent sold 2 million copies a month, according to Bloomberg.

At present, however, in the food start-up companies, substitute food companies have not become the mainstream.

According to data released by CBInsights in June last year, among the 119 food startups counted in the past four years, there are also many startups that want to develop new foods, but companies like Soylent do not account for a high proportion of substitute food, accounting for only 2% of the number of similar companies.

Most of the other startups that develop new foods, such as Hampton Creek and Impossible Food, use plants to grow healthy, low-consumption meat in the laboratory.

Inscription Pixabay