UC Davis spinoff One Bio raises $27m Series A to bridge the fiber gap
Summary
One Bioa UC Davis spinoff with proprietary technology to chop up polysaccharides from agricultural waste into odorless, colorless, and tasteless fibers that can be added to foods at high inclusion rateshas raised a $27 million series A round.The round was led by AlphaEdison, joined by new investors including Leaps by Bayer, Mitsui E12, Morado Ventures, ReMY, and DSM, and backed by existing investors iSelect, Skyview Life Sciences, Collaborative Fund, and Acre Venture Partners.Founded as BCD Bioscience by Dr. Matt Amicucci, Dr. Carlito Lebrilla, Dr. Bruce German and Dr. David Mills in 2019, One Bio brought in Matt Barnard, cofounder of vertical farming firm Plenty, as cofounder and CEO in 2023.One Bios core technology is a chemical method for disassembling polysaccharides (longer-chain carbs) from thousands of plants and microbes into invisible and tasteless oligosaccharides, Barnard told AgFunderNews.The processwhich does not change the structure of the fiber, but makes it soluble, digestible and palatableis initiated by a reaction between a metal catalyst (iron) and an oxidizing agent (hydrogen peroxide) to produce reactive radical species that chop up polysaccharides into oligosaccharides that can then be characterized using liquid chromatographymass spectrometry.This will enable formulators to add meaningful amounts of fiber to products at levels that were previously out of reach because the fiber content made the end product unpalatable, claimed Barnard.We have characterized and cataloged the structures of fibers across the plant world, and the tool we use to do that can now make them available to add to almost any food or beverage. Basically, the method was originally developed as an analytical tool but its actually scalable as a process to produce large amounts of these oligosaccharides.One Biowhich was initially positioned as a precision prebiotics companyalso uses third-party tools such as SHIME (an invitro simulator of the human digestive system or model gut) and an in-house high-throughput screening platform that allows it to test how fibers impact the gut microbiome.Understanding the structure/function relationships of polysaccharides requires that their structures be known. So one would be, we approach a large food or beverage company and say when you make your plant milk, you are throwing away a lot of valuable oat fiber. These things have performed wildly well in our customer research.Over time, said Barnard, Well have a portfolio of things, both products and claims.To date, One Bio has granted patents on its depolymerization process and a composition of matter patent on the short chain fibers the process produces, plus a number of pending patents.Asked about the current funding environment, Barnard said: Theres just a fraction of the capital going in [to agrifoodtech startups] this year versus three years ago, so we are quite proud that One Bio was able to attract a round as sizable as this for a Series A [which brings the startups cumulative funding to $44 million].Fiber has always been the poor cousin of protein when it comes to consumer awareness, despite the fact that most Americans do not consume recommended amounts, he said. But were acknowledging that 70%-plus of the calories consumed today are processed and if we can slip more healthy fibers into peoples lives without asking them to change their behavior, that could make a huge difference.