Founded in 2012, and based in Chicago, the company has been funded by a series of federal agencies in the United States (National Science Foundation, Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency and National Aeronautics and Space Administration) since 2013 and began taking venture capital financing backed by investors including 1955 Capital, ADM, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Danone, Generation, and Softbank.

In 2009, co-founder and CSO Mark Kozubal was on a NASA-funded study of life in extreme environments that uncovered the "Fy" protein, derived from the acidophilic fungus Fusarium strain flavolapis,[2] originally dubbed MK7, in the geothermal springs of the Supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park.

[7] Sustainable Bioproducts partnered with Montana State University in 2013 to understand the marketplace fit of MK7,[8] and it has a profit-sharing agreement with Yellowstone in exchange for the right to harvest from its land.

At the time of its Series A, the 22-employee company was based out of the University of Chicago's Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and believed itself to be two years from commercialization of its solid, liquid or powder products.

[20] At the time of the Series B round, which was led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Al Gore's Generation Investment Management LLP, Nature's Fynd employed 50 people in the new Chicago production center and research & development office in Bozeman, Montana.

[9] Sometimes called Fusarium Spp, the branching network of mycelial filaments forms a proteinaceous facsimile of meat in open trays with basic post processing (drying, pressing, and flavoring) without the need for a bioreactor.