Those Vegan Cowboys, a Belgian start-up specialising in precision fermented dairy, has celebrated record-breaking progress since launching its crowdfunding campaign last week.
The company raised €2.5 million in the space of one day, by more than 600 new shareholders, before the campaign had even officially launched. Notably, the start-up raised €1 million within an hour – a new record for Invesdor, the crowdfunding platform hosting the campaign.
Overall, the company has raised over €6.7 million so far from over 1,100 new shareholders, with 20 days left until the crowdfunder is due to close on 23 March.
Hille van der Kaa, the company’s founder and CEO, described herself as being “genuinely speechless for a moment” at the record-breaking funding milestone.
“Because this crowdfunding campaign is about more than raising capital. It shows that we are not only attracting investment, but also building a community of co-owners who feel deeply connected to our mission,” van der Kaa said.
“There is a lot at stake: for the climate and for animals. The potential impact of our company is significant. If we succeed, we can help reshape an industry at global scale.”
The news follows a successful €6.25 million raised in Those Vegan Cowboys’ first funding round in December 2025, with the start-up continuing to progress toward scale-up and commercialisation of its animal-free casein ingredient.
Casein, a protein found in dairy and responsible for many of the nutritional and sensory attributes of cheese, is increasingly being produced via precision fermentation technology. This technology involves training microbes to produce target proteins, such as casein and whey, in bioreactors without the use of animal inputs.
The technology has been used in the food and pharmaceutical industries for decades, but its use to create alternative proteins for the plant-based food and beverage industry is more novel – and is gaining significant traction in recent years, with companies promising to have created ‘bioidentical’ ingredients that can make animal-free cheese, yogurts and beverages indistinguishable from their conventional dairy counterparts.
French food-tech start-up Verley announced the successful closing of a $38 million Series A funding round last week, supporting the roll-out of its precision fermented beta-lactoglobulin (BLG) – a functional whey protein suitable for use in a range of applications such as protein shots and shakes.
Meanwhile, Australian innovator All G closed a $6.6 million convertible note round in December to fuel commercial-scale production of its precision fermented lactoferrin ingredient, targeting the early life and adult nutrition markets.
Top image: © Those Vegan Cowboys
