Today NS/TX Industries, the manufacturing technology company behind NEW/SCHOOL FOODS, announced that it has raised capital to further scale its alt protein manufacturing platform and begin work building its V2 Assembly Line.
The company secured $10.5 million USD in Series A funding and non-dilutive grants. The round was co-led by Inter IKEA Development BV and Lever VC, and included investment from Good Startup, Verdex Capital, the company’s Founder Chris Bryson, and non-dilutive capital from Protein Industries Canada.
NS/TX is now initiating construction of its V2 Assembly Line, which will automate the proprietary manufacturing process, increasing capacity by more than 10X, and further reducing production costs. The line will be built and commissioned in NS/TX’s 28,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility in Toronto.
“In our mission to support companies leading the next generation of sustainable and affordable products and materials, we have been very impressed with NS/TX’s rapid progress in solving key scale-up challenges and demonstrating the versatility of its manufacturing platform, and we are excited to support them through this next chapter of growth,” said Raffaele Govinazzi, Innovation Ventures Leader at Inter IKEA Group.
NS/TX built and launched its V1 commercial assembly line in late 2024, which uses a proprietary texturization & scaffolding technology that is purpose-built to create next-generation meat & seafood alternatives. Since then, NS/TX has reduced production costs by more than 10X and validated the scalability of its technology. This was accomplished through hundreds of production trials, numerous process breakthroughs, machinery upgrades, and digital quality assurance augmentations to its assembly line. This resulted in new patents and proprietary equipment designs.
“NEW/SCHOOL FOODS and NS/TX Industries have been a valuable partner in the development of new technologies and talent in the Canadian food production and value-added agriculture sector. Their continued growth and ability to attract new investment is proof that Canada can build a stronger future for all Canadians, from new food options for consumers to new economic opportunities for Canada,” Protein Industries Canada CEO Tyler Groeneveld said.
NS/TX’s patented manufacturing and scaffolding technologies solve a number of shortcomings commonly found in most meat & seafood alternatives, which are due to the industry’s conventional production technologies like extrusion. NS/TX’s scaffolding technology enables a series of benefits:
- GREATER SCALABILITY: Greater tuneability than extrusion, greater consistency as scale is increased
- FLEXIBLE FORMATS: Production of whole-cuts (steaks, filets, other large structured formats), with support for nearly any meat/seafood species analogue, all made via the same assembly line process, with concurrent support for non whole-cuts formats (breaded strips, burgers, etc).
- TUNEABLE TEXTURE: Recreates the macrostructure (shape & layering) and microstructure (muscle fibre width, length) of different meat & seafood products, combining both muscle fibers and connective tissue into a single layered structure, with the ability to adjust multiple different textural parameters.
- CUSTOMIZABLE FLAVOR: Tuneable flavor profiles, multiple flavor delivery systems within each scaffold, and support for oil-based flavors
- SUPERIOR APPEARANCE & COOKING PROFILE: Finished products have raw appearance and visually transform upon cooking, similar to meat & seafood.
- CLEAN-LABEL NUTRITION: Cleaner label nutritional profiles, no need for methylcellulose, and the flexibility to use multiple different types of proteins, fats, flavors, colors and nutritional add-ons
NS/TX’s platform is capable of creating both red meat and seafood analogues. Over the last year the company has made continuous upgrades to its commercial assembly line machinery in order to be able to produce a wide number of different products.
“We’re excited to embark on this next chapter of growth – by automating and scaling our platform, we will be able to produce meat alternatives that are cost-competitive and that finally meet customer demands,” said Chris Bryson, Founder and CEO of NS/TX. “With the added capacity that this new assembly line will provide, we will be able to work with leading brands across the globe to make our technology, production capacity, and products available to them.”
About NS/TX Industries
NS/TX is a food manufacturing platform built to unlock next-generation protein alternatives. Built around a proprietary, tuneable scaffolding technology, NS/TX provides production, R&D, and co-manufacturing services to bring high-performance whole cuts to market faster, at scale, with unparalleled flexibility. The NS/TX platform delivers consumer and restaurant-facing products to the market via its NEW/SCHOOL FOODSTM brand. The company operates a vertically integrated facility in downtown Toronto and has raised over $30 million USD in private and government funding.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260610305113/en/
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