Elo Life Systems grabs another $20.5M to get its monk fruit sweetener to market
Summary
It also has a partnership with Dole to create a fungal-resistant Cavendish banana.Other developments in the works include the production of other ingredients like proteins, natural preservatives, flavors and bioactive compounds.Leveraging new technologies, like molecular farming, gene-editing and precision fermentation, Elo Life and others are unlocking whole new categories of ingredients, and completely reinventing our food supply chain, said Elo Life CEO Todd Rands. Also, inflation created even more pressure on food prices, which impacts consumers willingness to adopt new technologies that add cost.Rands went on to explain that all of that was a wake-up call for all of us. Elo Life works to reduce monk fruits cost and carbon footprint through local production via molecular farming. Simply put, it uses plants as biofactories to produce the monk fruit sweetener in other easier-to grow-crops, like watermelons and sugar beets.Meanwhile, Rands expects to deploy the new funding over the next two years as Elo Life builds its supply chain in preparation for its first sweetener products.It will also work on technology development that includes a partnership with a large non-governmental organization to make staple nutrition crops, like cassava and cowpea, more productive and resistant to the effects of climate change in third-world countries.Where Elo Lifes first three years were spent on R&D to create and optimize the sweetener, these next two years will be spent on talking to growers and processors for supply, ingredient companies for commercialization and regulators to secure approvals, Rands said.Its time for Elo to turn outwards and build scale, he said. He declined to comment on company valuation other than to say it was not a down round.Weve generated value and critical momentum over the past two years in building a seasoned management team, expanding our technical, manufacturing and commercial capabilities and achieving product milestones, Rands told TechCrunch via email.