Vegan Startup Raises $300 Million in Series C to Make Dairy Without Cows

Vegan? Call us psychic, but we’re going to go ahead and guess that giving up ice cream was one of the harder aspects of your transition to plant-based living. We know, we know, there are countless vegan ice creams on the market, and while some are completely delicious, others are lackluster.

But what if we told you there was an entirely new category of vegan ice cream that’s flora-based and tastes like the real deal? Meet Perfect Day, which uses milk’s essential genes mixed with microflora that is then fermented into the nutritionally identical milk proteins of whey and casein, even though the product is made from flora and not cows. Earlier this week, the company announced that it had expanded its Series C financing to $300 million led by CPP investments, and the plant-based dairy innovators are poised to revolutionize the dairy industry with their proprietary flora-made dairy proteins.

“This marks the first investment into Thematic Investing’s new Climate Change Opportunities strategy, which will focus on innovative companies that are well-positioned to respond to the challenges posed by climate change,” said Leon Pedersen, Managing Director, Head of Thematic Investing, CPP Investments, in the company statement. “Sustainable technologies like Perfect Day are poised to capture structural shifts in industrial practices, physical resources and consumer preferences for environmentally conscious options, which are well-suited to our long-term investing approach. We look forward to building our partnership with the company and its management team.”

Perumal Gandhi, co-founder of Perfect Day, echoed Pedersen’s excitement, saying, “We’re grateful for the continued support of our investors from all over the world. But, of course, our mission is about much more than money. We continue to believe the next generation of protein will be driven by production speed, price, and taste, and we’ll have several exciting updates to share in the months ahead as our commercial partners start to build momentum.”

Perfect Day’s flora-based, dairy-free goodness, will first be made available for consumers to experience with the launch of Smitten N’Ice Cream, made in partnership with ice cream company Smitten Ice Cream.

So far, flavors in the dairy-free collection in collaboration with Perfect Day include Brown Sugar Chocolate, Fresh Strawberry, Coconut Pecan, and Root Beer Float. You can buy all four flavors or a collection of four Smitten N’Ice Cream flavors of your choice for $59 or any six pints in the collection for $79 here.

Whether you’re spooning up Coconut Pecan N’Ice Cream while streaming Zac Effron’s new Netflix series on sustainability and climate change or indulging in a pint of Root Beer Float at your socially distanced BBQ, this summer’s ice cream festivities are about to get even better.

Here’s to the perfect day when Perfect Day makes conventional dairy a thing of the past.