June 19, 2019

by Lynda Kiernan

Israeli food tech startup DouxMatok announced it raised a $22 million Series B to fund the scale-up of its sugar reduction solution.

The round was led by Singapore’s BlueRed Partners, and included a string of strategic investors – Südzucker AG, the largest sugar company in the EU; Royal DSM, a global leader in science-based nutrition, health, and sustainable living; and Singha Ventures, a corporate venture fund of Thailand’s  largest food and beverage conglomerates Singha Corporation. Also participating in the round were existing shareholders, Pitango Venture Capital, Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), and Food Lab Capital; and new shareholders, btov Partners, OurCrowd, and La Maison.

“We’re committed to supporting companies with a world-changing vision, and DouxMatok has clearly proven to be such a company, with its focus and progress in developing and providing market access to a sugar reduction solution for food producers globally,” said Ittai Harel, managing general partner, Pitango Venture Capital.

DouxMatok is transforming how sugar is tasted and perceived by humans, and how it is utilized by the food industry. In development for more than six years and with 20 granted patents, DouxMatok’s process requires no artificial chemicals, is fully compliant with FDA and EU regulations, and can modify how sugar molecules interact with taste receptors on the tongue.

The physical system through which humans taste food is inefficient, with many sugar molecules moving through the mouth without registering with taste receptors – meaning humans eat sweet foods without tasting their full sweetness, requiring food companies to add more sugar than is needed to achieve a certain taste.

DouxMatok’s technology coats each sugar molecule onto organic ‘carriers’ using a natural mineral that transports each sugar molecule to a person’s taste receptors, significantly reducing the amount of sugar needed to gain the same taste profile. Through maximizing the efficiency of tasting sugar, DouxMatok’s technology allows consumers to perceive more sweetness for a longer period of time, thereby reducing sugar content in foods by up to 40 percent without affecting their taste.

The efficacy of its platform has been validated through independent consumer and expert sensory panel tests that concluded that DouxMatok’s sugars were perceived to be equally as sweet as a full sugar reference, while being favored in blind tastings.

DouxMatok plans to use the funding from this round to support the large-scale production and sales of its game-changing food solution technology, and its commercialization in North America and the EU. It also plans to expand its business to include next-generation products and flavors, such as salt.

“DouxMatok has the potential to completely revolutionize the food industry across multiple categories and ingredients,” Eran Baniel, CEO and co-founder of DouxMatok,  told GAI News in an interview last August.

“Many ingredients that consumers love the taste of are not the healthiest in large quantities (such as salt) or they are expensive to produce (such as vanilla). The targeted flavor delivery system we’ve created can be utilized for many different ingredients and as we expand and scale up, we plan to adapt our technology to these different ingredients.”

The industrial manufacturing of DouxMatok’s sugars is soon to be in the EU through a partnership with Südzucker AG, with initial quantities to be available in the fourth quarter of this year. Concurrently, the company is engaged in a series of collaborations with leading food companies to reformulate popular products using DouxMatok’s sugars for an improved nutritional profile.

“We at Südzucker are thrilled to expand upon our collaboration with DouxMatok and leverage the already proven synergies, as well as additional resources gained as a part of the new funding round, to speed up availability of the innovative DouxMatok sugars in our key European markets,” said Randolf Burisch, head of Business Unit Sugar/Sales, Südzucker AG.

“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to speed up commercialization so that we can lead the quest for reducing added sugars, while providing consumers with the tastes they love and want,” said Baniel. “We’re grateful to our new investors and existing ones for making it possible for the company to speed up growth so as to meet the huge market demand we’re experiencing.”