Calls in the food and beverage industry due to contaminating incidents can have catastrophic effects. Companies not only have to pay fines and damage, but the effects on the reputation of the brand can be long.
For this reason Spore.bioA deep tech startup based in Paris tries to reinvent microbiological tests to avoid the next PR crisis in the food industry. After removal a round of 8 million euros (8.3 million US dollars to current exchange rates) a little more than a year ago, the company secured a round of Series A 23 million US dollars.
singular leads the round. Point 72 Ventures, 1st Art Ventures (Family Office of the Peugeot family), Station F and Lord David Prior are also participating. Existing investors Localglobe, No Label Ventures and Family C also use more money into the company.
The reason why Spore.Bio was increased so quickly after his prepared round is that there is a real customer interest. The startup has already signed some commercial contracts that can cover up up to 200 factories. Spore.bio had to open a waiting list to ensure that it can keep up with the demand.
What does the technology of spore.bios do too special? In the food and beverage industry, microbiological tests need several days. Companies have to take an example and send them to a specialized laboratory for testing.
“Imagine we are in 2022, everything is hyper -optimized. You have a lean production everywhere, every step is optimized and counted in minutes to achieve a result to switch from one step to the next, ”said Amine Raji, co -founder and CEO, to Techcrunch. “And BAM, you have a 5-day inappropriate test in the agricultural food sector and a 14-day test in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic sector to achieve a result because you have to wait for the bacteria to grow.”
First, tests have to take place outside the location, since potential bacteria contain petri-dish-based tests. So you cannot risk contaminating other parts of the factory with your tests. Second, the part of the bacteria -linking takes time.
Spore.Bio uses a completely different process. The company sends light into a sample with certain wavelengths and records the spectral signature. Thanks to a advisable deep-learning algorithm, it can be determined whether this specific sample contains bacteria or pathogens.
This model is Spore.BIOS’s most important asset. The startup has signed a partnership with the Pasteur Institute to access its Biobank of bacterial samples.
In the coming months, it would like to produce test machines that customers can use directly in their own factories. As a result, microbiological tests can be carried out directly on site. The company claims that it reduces the overall process from days up to a question of minutes.
Before the founding of Spore.Bio, Raji was a food and beverage manufacturer who worked for Nestlé. Of course, he concentrated on the industry that he already knew. However, it turns out that microbiological tests are much larger than expected.
Companies that produce cosmetic products have also expressed interest in Spore.Bio’s technology. “Due to customer requirements, environmental problems and other reasons, manufacturers have to get rid of the preservatives. Apart from the fact that preservatives are bacteria that kill preservatives, ”said Raji.
Similarly, the pharmaceutical industry found an application for its most progressive treatments. “There is a growing need, especially for innovative therapies such as genes and cell therapy,” said Raji. He added that these products tend to have a short shelf life that can be up to seven days. So these therapies cannot go through the usual test processes in such a short time frame.
With today’s financing round, the startup expects to significantly expand its team. 30 people are currently working for the company and they will be 50 by the end of 2025.
