A Tyneside biotech business focused on lab grown meat production collapsed with debts of almost £1m, documents show.
Cellularevolution Ltd – which traded as CellRev – was founded six years ago by Dr Martina Miotto and Che Connon to specialise in sustainable meat production, amid aims to mass produce lab-grown meat. The Newcastle University spin-out, based at The Biosphere at Newcastle Helix, had set out to help change future meat consumption habits and to speed up the development of life-saving treatments, and was launched after a breakthrough discovery which then provided the basis for its continuous cell technology.
“Clean” or “slaughter-free” meat is grown in a lab and developed using cell-based technology, rather than animals, having initially been pioneered by a Dutch food tech firm which created the world’s first cell-based beef burger patty at Maastricht University in 2013. Two technologies were created by CellRev to make it possible – a synthetic coating that eliminates the need for animal-derived serum, plus bioreactor technology that means it could move from batch to continuous production.
The firm’s work prompted interest from those involved in innovative cell and gene therapies, and in cultured meat, a growing industry which is expected to ramp up over the next decade. However, last month the company called in administrators from business advisory firm Armstrong Watson and the firm closed, with all nine jobs lost.
Documents filed at Companies House show it had a total deficiency of £971,097 when it collapsed. At the time of the administrators’ appointment the company had £81,142 in the bank, and it also had specialist equipment worth £527,073 and an IƵ grant claim of £31,245.
The value of the firm’s Intellectual Property isn’t estimated on the document. In all, estimated total assets available for creditors on the books total £639,460. Total assets available to unsecured creditors total £62,667.
Unsecured creditors claims include £123,978 owed to trade creditors, bank loans of £8,315, unsecured employee claims of £101,471 and a convertible loan note of £800,000. A list of 35 creditors is included, showing money owed to a range of companies including manufacturers of cell counting and analysis equipment, laboratory suppliers, bioscience suppliers, financial consultants and accountants, property firms and logistics specialists.
Over its six years of trading, the firm secured a number of investment deals. In 2021, the firm raised seed funding of £1.2m from CPT Capital, existing investors Northstar Ventures and the Northern Accelerator Seed Investment Fund (NASIF).
A year later it brought in a further £1.75m from a group of investors led by Happiness Capital and including venture capital firm Allusion One, and more investment from existing investors of £1.4m followed in 2023.
It also secured £330,000 of grant funding from Innovate Ƶ and its Future Economy Investor Partnership programme. Around the same time, CellRev joined forces with BSF Enterprise – the London Stock Exchange-listed portfolio of tissue engineering businesses – to form Cultivated Meat Technologies Limited.
Late last year BSF announced to investors that it was abandoning the joint venture with CellRev and would look at different ways to establish cultivate meat products with major Ƶ and European food processors.
At the time of their appointment, a spokesperson for Armstrong Watson said: “Ed Connell and Mike Kienlen were appointed joint administrators of Cellularevolution Limited (the company) on August 12, 2025, and now manage the business, affairs and assets of the company. Following their appointment, the joint administrators have made all staff redundant and are working with their agents, Hilco Valuation Services in relation to realising the assets of the company.”
