December 6, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Co-founded only in 2018, biotech startup Aanika Biosciences announced it has closed on a $12 million Series A to create a safer food supply through more advanced food tracing technology.

This round was led by Jon Cholak of Adit Ventures, and includes Draper Associates and SOSV. 

Aanika was launched by Vishaal Bhuyan after a personal experience and negative consequences of ordering fresh, ethically sourced seeds, and instead receiving stale, contaminated products. This experience sparked a mission to discover a method of tracking, tracing, and authenticating products in the food supply chain.

“Foodborne illness impacts over 50 million people and costs the U.S. tens of billions of dollars a year,” said Vishaal Bhuyan, co-founder and CEO, Aanika. “Our technology can help minimize the impact and we are developing solutions that may prevent it from happening in the first place.”

Aanika’s technological approach is to accelerate the speed and accuracy of how food safety issues are handled. The startup’s platform uses proprietary edible microbial “tags” that enable farmers to “watermark” crops. These tags can be detected at any point along the value chain, so when there’s a food safety incident, the foodborne illness can be traced directly back to the source. 

“Innovation in food safety is long overdue, and there couldn’t be a more important time to bring a technology like this to the market,” said Dr. Ellen Jorgensen, chief science officer, Aanika. “The pandemic has truly exposed the fragility of our supply chain. Being able to expand and build out our capability will give farmers, insurers, food companies and consumers an added layer of transparency and security, as well as minimize the economic and environmental impact of food recalls.”

Food is currently the fourth biggest counterfeit market in the world, with olive oil, fish, honey, vinegar, coffee, and vanilla being the top targets, according to the 2016 Brand Protection and Product Traceability Market Research Report. In the U.S. alone, this activity has been determined by the Grocery Manufacturers Association to cost the industry between $10 and $15 billion per year, and in the EU counterfeit wine and spirits cost the economy €2.7 billion (US$3 billion) per year, according to the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).

Another startup, TruTag Technologies, is working to develop a very similar platform. The company raised a $7.5 million Series C in October 2019 backed by Pangaea Ventures and Happiness Capital in support of its invisible, edible barcodes called TruTags® that can be incorporated directly onto products to strengthen transparency throughout supply chains.

Likewise, California-based SafeTraces, which raised $10 million in 2018,  is a provider of on-food safety solutions using FDA-approved, food grade DNA technology in the form of flavorless and invisible DNA barcodes applied directory to food that enable complete traceability and sanitation verification.

Through harnessing the power of biology, Aanika CEO, Vishaal Bhuyan stated that the company believes that its technology, together with blockchain capabilities, can revolutionize agricultural insurance underwriting.

“We believe Aanika could transform the food system as their traceability technology can integrate with the blockchain and ensure high quality data from end-to-end,” said Tim Draper, founder and managing partner, Draper Associates.

Bhuyan added, “Identifying the origin of food recalls is just the start of what this platform can do. We are excited to see how far we can push our microbial technology to add value in the form of combating contamination, increasing nutritional content and supporting crop health.”

– Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.