Deal of the Week: Latin American family office invests in cutting edge food company

A Guatemalan family investment company has invested in a San Francisco-based biotech company developing meat grown from animal cells.

The Losa Group, a Guatemala City-based family office, was one of eight investors committing  $2 million of seed finance to New Age Meats, a biotechnology company that is developing meat grown from animal cells instead of animal slaughter.

The Losa Group is the family office of the Bosch Gutiérrez family, one of Central America’s best-known business families. They own the conglomerate CMI (Corporación Multi-Inversiones), which was founded in 1920 by Juan Gutiérrez and is now run by the third generation of the family. 

New Age Meats has already received $5 million in backing from investors since it was set up just two years ago. 

Other family/principal investment offices backing the group are ex-banker Brian Finn’s New York City-based Siddhi Capital. And in an early funding round: Kairos Ventures, an investment group owned by Californian investor Jim Demetriades, and Agronomics, a listed food investment group founded by Richard Reed, a UK-based entrepreneur who co-founded Innocent Drinks before selling it to the Coca-Cola.