December 14, 2016

Apeel Sciences, a Santa Barbara-based food tech startup, has raised $33 million in a Series B led by venture capital giants, Andreessen Horowitz and DBL Partners, and including new and existing investors, Upfront Ventures, Seed2Growth, Powerplant Ventures, and Tao Capital Partners.

Apeel was founded by James Rogers, a PhD graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and recipient of the prestigious 2012 Frank J. Padden Dr. Award for polymer physics for his doctorate research in Materials. The company has developed a method for extracting organic molecules from organic agricultural waste and byproducts, such as grape skins that remain after wine production processing or banana peels, leaves, or stems left over after harvesting, to create undetectable edible barriers derived from natural plant extracts that can slow the process of decay of fresh produce by as much as five times, significantly extending produce shelf life.

Working under the knowledge that spoilage is caused by oxidation and water loss, the coating, which can be easily washed away with water, protects fruit and vegetables through controlling the rate at which water and gasses enter, or are released by produce. This effectively makes obsolete the use of gas, wax or other techniques currently used in the industry to attempt to keep produce fresher longer.

“It takes 30 days to get blueberries grown in Chile to market in the United States, which means they have to be picked before they’re ripe and shipped under heavy refrigeration,” James Rogers told the New York Times. “We can change that.”

Currently, Apeel’s technology, which has been approved for sale and use by the Food and Drug Administration, is being marketed under the brand names Edipeel and Invisipeel – with Edipeel designed to be applied post-harvest through dipping or during processing, while Invisipeel is designed to be applied to crops in the field.

However, Apeel’s ability to slow decay and reduce food waste is only one draw factor for investors in the company. Due to economic pressures inherent within the food production industry paired with the limitations of existing logistics, the most popular varieties of fruit and vegetables available in markets today have been bred for their ability to hold up through sometimes extended periods of transportation, not for flavor or other gratifying characteristics.

Apeel’s technology will be able to expand and widen the range of foods available to consumers on a year-round basis, while also reducing the need for pesticides and refrigeration and easing the overall environmental impact of agricultural production.

However, application goes beyond answering challenges faced mainly in more developed retail value chains. After being awarded $100,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2012, the foundation used Apeels’ Edipeel product to more than double the shelf life of cassava root – a widely produced crop across Africa and a main source of calories. Once harvested however, cassava must be eaten or processed within 48 hours before it rapidly spoils – a fact that has limited African smallholder farmers from being able to commercialize their crops. This ability to extend the life of cassava and enabling commercialization has the potential to lift the market value of the crop by $1 billion in Nigeria alone, according to Apeel.

“I could not possibly be more proud of the incredible scientific advances made by our team, or more optimistic about what the future holds for our company,” said Apeel founder and CEO, James Rogers in a recent blog post. “I feel grateful every day to have the opportunity to work with such talented people to solve such a meaningful problem in the world.”

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Lynda Kiernan