Aromyx Secures $3 Million Seed Funding to Advance Biosensor Chips for Digital Taste and Smell Capture

On June 26, VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) learned from foreign media reports that biotechnology company Aromyx has completed a $3 million seed financing round. The round was led by Ulu Ventures, with participation from Rationalwave Capital Partners, Merus Capital, CE Venture Capital, Stanford University, and Radicle Growth. Aromyx plans to use the proceeds to expand its scientific team and continue developing digital technologies.

Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Aromyx is a company that applies biotechnology and data science technologies to capture sensory data. Under the leadership of newly appointed CEO Dr. Josh Silverman and Founder and Chairman Chris Hanson, Aromyx digitizes signals generated by human taste and olfactory senses to create and apply sensory data. The company’s proprietary Allegory database provides the foundation for machine learning-based analysis of taste and smell.

Aromyx’s proprietary EssenceChip is a biosensor chip that scientifically records taste and olfactory data, demonstrating strong reproducibility in real-world environments. As the foundation of Aromyx’s core technology, EssenceChip can replicate the olfactory and gustatory signals generated by the human brain. By integrating the company’s proprietary bioanalytical technologies, EssenceChip can identify odors/gases and tastes with sensitivity and specificity comparable to those of the human nose and tongue. Each microarray spot on the chip contains unique olfactory receptors that respond to one or more ligand molecules. When exposed to specific olfactory or gustatory stimuli, these spots absorb ligand molecules and activate signal cascades identical to those in the human nose, thereby generating sensory data.

Aromyx is the only company that has achieved the quantification, capture, analysis, processing, sharing, and commercialization of olfactory and gustatory data, bringing smell and taste into the digital age and enabling rich applications across multiple industries. The company has developed a variety of products and technologies based on olfaction and taste, including EssenceCapture, EssenceAnalytics, and EssenceCloud, in addition to EssenceChip.

Aromyx’s products are used by numerous Fortune 500 companies in the pharmaceutical, chemical, food and beverage, and consumer goods industries.

Ulu Ventures, founded in 2008 and headquartered in California, USA, focuses on investing in early-stage companies in cloud services and intelligent data. The firm leverages data analytics to assess investment risks, conduct decision-making analyses, and ultimately select its investment targets. Ulu Ventures has made 109 investments in total, and its second venture capital fund, announced on November 17, 2017, raised $66 million.

Rationalwave Capital Partners is a New York-headquartered venture capital firm founded by Mark Rosenblatt in 2003. The company primarily invests in public and private technology companies and has made four investments to date.

Merus Capital, founded in 2008 and headquartered in California, USA, was co-founded by Salman Ullah, former Vice President of Corporate Development at Google; Sean Dempsey, former Head of Corporate Development at Google; and Peter Hsing, former Managing Director of Corporate Strategy at Microsoft. The firm focuses on early-stage venture capital, primarily investing in software and internet companies within the commercial, cloud services, and mobile sectors.

CE Ventures, founded in 2015 and headquartered in Hong Kong, focuses on investing in private technology companies in Israel and the United States. The company primarily invests in early- and late-stage companies in the fields of technology, media, telecommunications, and digital health.

CE Ventures is backed by clients of CreditEase, a leader in China’s wealth management and microfinance sectors. With branches in over 100 Chinese cities and nearly 50,000 employees, CreditEase boasts a roster of international investors, including Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and IDG Capital Partners.

Radicle Growth, established in 2016 and headquartered in California, USA, is a venture capital firm. The company primarily invests in innovative agritech and foodtech startups, having completed nine investments to date.

(Compiled by Tang Lulu)