Investor Jim Rogers backs foodtech startup Life3 Biotech

RENOWNED investor Jim Rogers has joined Singapore-based foodtech company Life3 Biotech as a member of its board of investors. Life3 is the first alternative protein company that he is advising.

Together with billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros, Mr Rogers co-founded the Quantum Fund and was one of the first Western investors to get into the China stock market back in the 1980s. He also created the Rogers International Commodities Index.

He said the plant-based protein market is a fast-growing industry driven by consumer demand from all around the world. The pandemic has shown how food supply chains can get threatened, emphasising the need for non-traditional foods that are sustainable, affordable, storable and transportable.

"I was impressed that (Life3 is) a local startup with proprietary science-based formulas and technology that were germinated right here at the National University of Singapore’s Food Science and Technology Laboratory," he said.

The company's pilot factory in Paya Lebar, which sits on 50,000 sq ft of land, will house a processing line worth over US$3 million, with the aim of producing plant-based protein products of superior quality in terms of nutrition, texture and taste. The facility will be completed in the second half of 2021.

The company aims to scale up its plant-based innovation Veego, which is made of leguprotein, a proprietary protein extracted from high protein crops such as legumes and microalgae.

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In December 2020, Life3 launched its first consumer product Peasy, a meat alternative made primarily from pea protein. The product is low in sodium and rich in iron and vitamin D.