Blackbird-backed start-up Sunfed is officially closing its doors with the “chicken-free chicken” start-up’s chief executive Shama Sukul Lee saying investors, including the Australian venture capital behemoth, had written off her company.

Sukul Lee said New Zealand-based Sunfed had struggled to get access to fresh capital, especially after the COVID-19 period, blaming tough market conditions and venture capital investors, who she said, were chasing faster valuation growth.

“Essentially, a lot of venture capital investors jumped into the plant-based gold rush, thinking they could get fast valuation returns similar to what they’re used to in the virtual world,” she said, before realising it was a longer-term play.

“The plant-based bubble burst and the category has been undergoing a reality check, and rightly so.”

Nearly a decade after Sunfed was founded, and six years after receiving $4.5 million in funding from Blackbird, Sukul Lee said the company’s wind-down process had begun.

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“With the unfavourable market conditions, I had to make the responsible decision of shutting the company down in a solvent, orderly fashion,” she said.

It comes after Sunfed had its valuation slashed to zero by Blackbird, with its products no longer available in Australian supermarkets, and inventory expected to run out in New Zealand over the next two months.

Sukul Lee said Sunfed managed to get through “COVID hell” but that the company needed a capital injection.