Abstract

Impossible Foods, a US-based maker of plant-based meat, managed to raise $700 million in the pandemic year 2020. In just then 10 years of inception, it had managed to raise $1.5 billion from the likes of Bill Gates, Khosla Ventures, UBS, Temasek, and a host of celebrities including Serena Williams and Jay Z, who bet on plant-based meat, which they believed would revolutionize the environmentally unsustainable meat-based food industry. Its rival, Beyond Meat, launched its IPO in May 2019 and saw its valuation soar. Impossible Foods, on the other hand, seemed to be in no hurry for a public issue and raised record private investments in 2020. The case study captures the growth story of Impossible Foods and puts the reader in a position to understand the market structure of the plant-based food industry, competition among players, and the challenges faced by Impossible Foods. It helps the reader to better analyse the valuation challenges of a pioneering start-up in a nascent industry.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Understand the complexity in valuing the unlisted Impossible Foods, a pioneer in a nascent industry
• Analyze the framework of the plant-based meat industry
• Understand the challenges and risks in private equity funding
• Analyze the use of relative valuation in unlisted companies

Keywords

Plant Based Meat; Impossible Foods; Beyond Meet; Patrick Brown; Valuations; Series funding; Impossible Burger; Porter 5 Forces; SWOT; Entrepreneurial Finance; Private Equity; Venture Capital; Bill Gates; Serena Williams; Impossible Meat