Food technology · Plant based seafood
Current Foods
A San Francisco startup that built raw, sushi grade plant based tuna and salmon, won a spot on TIME's 2021 Best Inventions list, and was sold to Wicked Kitchen in an all stock deal in May 2023. By late 2025 its own website had gone dark.
A slice of deep red, on a TIME list
In November 2021, TIME put a slab of raw fish free tuna on its 100 Best Inventions list, calling it “deep red in color and designed to be prepared as sushi, nigiri, carpaccio, poke or ceviche.” The company was called Kuleana; its founder called it the Impossible Foods of seafood. Cooked plant based meat had gone mainstream by 2021. Raw, sushi grade seafood analogs had not, because the bar was different: no char, no sauce, no frying to hide texture.
The gap it aimed at
The pitch was built on complaints about ocean caught fish: mercury and microplastic contamination, and the pressure global demand puts on wild stocks. Kuleana's answer used algae, koji, radish, bamboo and potato to approximate the color, iron, vitamin B12 and omega-3 content of raw tuna, according to TIME's write up.
The first product reached food service in 2020, at outlets including Erewhon Market, Poke Bar locations, Blue Sushi Sake Grill and chef Matthew Kenney's restaurant group. By 2023, independent reporting on the Wicked Kitchen deal named Blue Sushi Sake Grill and Chef Guy Vaknin's City Roots Hospitality in New York as accounts still carrying the product.
Founder
Jacek Prus's Y Combinator biography describes an unusual path in: growing up “an enthusiastic meat-eater in Texas,” watching the documentary Earthlings during a philosophy degree, then animal activism, an MBA in entrepreneurship, and building the ProVeg Incubator, an accelerator for plant based and cultured food startups. He founded Kuleana in 2019 and remained its founder and CEO through the rebrand and the sale four years later.
Rebrand, raise, retail
In February 2022, the company dropped the Kuleana name for Current Foods and opened a direct to consumer waitlist. Four months later it announced an $18 million Seed round, with GreatPoint Ventures, Union Grove Venture Partners, Electric Feel Ventures and Astanor Ventures among the investors, alongside NBA player Chris Paul. A funding aggregator separately reports a March 2021 Seed of $3 million naming Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue, Founders Fund and Spark Capital, and an August 2020 round of $150,000, for a reported $21.1 million total across three rounds, a figure that does not quite reconcile with the $18 million the company itself announced for 2022.
In October 2022, Current Foods brought its first retail product, a smoked salmon analog, to Expo East, with distribution at Showfields, Fairway Market and Gourmet Garage in New York City. By the 2023 sale, an aggregator put the business at 24 employees and more than 450 US and European locations, with a Barcelona area co-manufacturer handling the European product.
The sale
In May 2023, Wicked Kitchen announced it had acquired Current Foods in an all stock transaction, its second seafood deal in under a year after buying Good Catch in September 2022. Food Dive reported that further terms were not disclosed. Just Food described the deal as covering equipment, brand trademarks and global sales accounts, and quoted a Wicked Kitchen spokesperson: entering “the sushi grade salmon and tuna market which is a sub-category that is our bullseye for our consumer and growing.” Neither company is publicly traded, and no SEC filing describing a purchase price turns up in EDGAR's full text search.
CEO Pete Speranza framed the deal as part of a broader consolidation story for plant based food. David Barber, a partner at Astanor Ventures, described by Vegconomist as Current Foods' largest investor, endorsed the landing spot. Current Foods had also won a FABI Award for its tuna fillet at the National Restaurant Association Show days before the acquisition, according to Food Dive.
What came after
Jacek Prus did not stay with the combined company. By May 2024, a podcast episode description for the Alt Protein Careers show identified him as “Senior Director of Development at Farmed Animal Funders,” joined “earlier this year” after founding Current Foods, which was “acquired by Wicked Kitchen.” A separate episode describes a former Current Foods and Wicked Kitchen product staffer as also having moved on.
The currentfoods.com domain kept serving its homepage through at least April 2025, based on Internet Archive snapshots. A capture attempt on November 30, 2025 returned a not found error, and no snapshot has been captured since. Wicked Kitchen's own website, archived August 2026, reads “THE NAP GOT OUT OF HAND. WE'RE BACK. (FOR VENGEANCE)” and promotes a new tempeh line sold only through a UK partner site, with no mention of Current Foods.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| TIME 100 Best Inventions | Kuleana tuna named to TIME's 2021 list, Nov 10, 2021. | Independent |
| Named food service accounts | Erewhon Market and Blue Sushi Sake Grill named in 2022 press materials. Food Dive independently confirmed Blue Sushi Sake Grill and City Roots Hospitality in 2023. | Independent |
| Named retail accounts | Showfields, Fairway Market and Gourmet Garage named for the 2022 salmon launch, in a trade article built on the company release. | Company-stated |
| Total funding raised | Company announced $18M in June 2022. An aggregator lists $21.1M across three rounds; the figures are close but not identical. | Differs slightly |
| SEC Form D | No Form D under Kuleana or Current Foods, and no filing mentioning Jacek Prus, appears in EDGAR's full text search as of Sep 25, 2026. | Not found |
| Acquisition terms | All stock, terms not disclosed per Food Dive and Just Food. Neither party is a public filer. | Public record gap |
| Employee count and footprint at sale | An aggregator states 24 employees and 450 plus locations at the 2023 sale, a compiled third party estimate, not a primary or SEC figure. | Aggregator estimate |
| Brand status today | currentfoods.com live in an April 29, 2025 snapshot, not found by Nov 30, 2025. Wicked Kitchen's site, archived Aug 25, 2026, does not mention Current Foods. | Public record |
Read plainly: Current Foods built a real product, a real press profile and a real acquisition. What is missing is a number for the deal, since neither party is publicly traded and no Form D shows up for either name despite years of reported fundraising. The brand's own web presence went dark sometime between April and November 2025, and the buyer's current site does not mention it.
What to watch
- Whether Current Foods products still ship under Wicked Kitchen, given the buyer's 2026 site shows no trace of the brand.
- Any trademark filing change that would confirm what Wicked Kitchen holds today under the Current Foods or Kuleana marks.
- Where Jacek Prus and other former staff have landed, since public trails already show two people who left after the sale.
- Whether a dollar figure for the 2023 acquisition ever surfaces, through a future filing by either party.
In their words
“Deep red in color and designed to be prepared as sushi, nigiri, carpaccio, poke or ceviche, the alt-tuna retains the iron, vitamin B12 and omega-3 fatty acid of the real thing.”
TIME, 100 Best Inventions of 2021 · Independent
“Since we began our company journey 3 years ago, our goal has been to create plant-based products that enable us to enjoy the best parts of seafood: taste, texture, and nutrition, without any of its usual drawbacks: mercury, microplastics, and oceanic depletion.”
Jacek Prus, founder and CEO, Feb 2022 launch release · Company release
“Since we have the opportunity to set industry standards for plant-based seafood, we want to do one better than creating a vegan fish stick, and have challenged ourselves to create plant-based products that come raw and unobscured.”
Jacek Prus, told to Vegconomist in 2021 · Company-stated
“[We] feel we have invested in the Beyond Meat of seafood.”
Ray Lane, Managing Partner, GreatPoint Ventures, Jun 2022 · Investor
“Current Foods is a perfect match for Wicked as a global-impact brand with the same mission and complementary products.”
Pete Speranza, CEO, Wicked Kitchen, May 2023 press release · Company release
Related companies
Sources
- IndependentKuleana tuna: The 100 Best Inventions of 2021
- IndependentUpside Foods, MeliBio, Kuleana Make TIME's 100 Best Inventions List
- CompanyCurrent Foods Making Waves Bringing Plant-Based Sushi-Grade Seafood Direct to Consumer
- IndependentKuleana Rebrands to Current Foods, Launches Sushi-Grade Vegan Seafood for D2C Market
- IndependentMore plant-based seafood analogs debut in North America
- IndependentCurrent Foods Closes $18M Seed Round to Launch Plant-Based Smoked Salmon into Retail
- IndependentCurrent Foods launches plant-based seafood analog at Expo East
- IndependentWicked Kitchen buys plant-based raw fish maker Current Foods
- IndependentWicked Kitchen Acquires Alt-Seafood Brand Current Foods to Expand Global Food Service
- CompanyWicked Kitchen Acquires Current Foods For More Vegan Offering
- IndependentWicked Kitchen buys US plant-based seafood company Current Foods
- CompanyKuleana company profile
- AggregatorCurrent Foods: Funding, Team & Investors
- IndependentJacek Prus of Farmed Animal Funders (Founded Current Foods, Acquired by Wicked Kitchen)
- Public recordEDGAR full text search, no Form D under “Kuleana” or “Current Foods” tied to this company, no filing mentions Jacek Prus
- Public recordcurrentfoods.com capture history, live through Apr 29, 2025, not found by Nov 30, 2025
- CompanyWicked Kitchen homepage, tempeh relaunch, no mention of Current Foods
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
