KBW Ventures, the venture capital (VC) firm founded by Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed, son of Saudi Arabia billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has invested in the pre-seed funding round for Singapore-based TurtleTree Labs, a biotechnology company that uses technology to create real milk from animal cells.The round was also joined by K2 Global and Lever VC. The amount of the funding was not disclosed.

“The seed funding will be used to further build out the company’s scientific team and to create additional prototypes. TurtleTree Labs plans to publicly debut the world’s first cultivated milk products in the spring,” said Max Rye, chief strategist at TurtleTree Labs.   

The startup is the world's first milk company using cell cultivation to create the full nutritional content of milk using just mammary cells, with no animal needed. The end product is the same as human breast milk and cow milk and will be sold as a food product.

“KBW Ventures’ interest in TurtleTree stems from both the team vision and the company’s strategic approach to the future of food using stem cell technology. Having spent time with the founding team in Singapore, we have a lot of confidence in TurtleTree’s progress as a biotech company and in the direction they are taking from a business perspective,” said Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) at KBW Ventures.

The VC recently invested in US-based pet food company Bond Pet Foods which uses biotechnology to make animal-free and protein-rich pet food through a fermentation process.