ProfilePrint, a Singapore-based patented food ingredient artificial intelligence (A.I.) fingerprint platform, announced Tuesday the closing of its Series A funding round at a valuation over three times its pre-series A round last year.
Backing this funding round are some of the world’s largest food ingredient conglomerates, namely Louis Dreyfus Company (Netherlands), Olam Food Ingredients (ofi – an operating group of Olam International Limited, Singapore), Sucafina (Switzerland), a Southeast Asian agrifood conglomerate (Indonesia), as well as international venture capital funds Greenwillow Capital Management (Singapore) and Real Tech Global Fund (Japan), Profile Print said in a statement.
With this funding round completed, the company plans to use the proceeds to expand the team, invest in research and development (R&D) to meet the growing demand for its services, and ramp up its international expansion.
The company is also seeing accelerated growth with four times more clients compared to a year ago for its food ingredient A.I. fingerprint solution driven by strong demand for specialty and traceable ingredients globally.
“With some of the world’s largest food ingredient conglomerates as strategic investors holding equal shares, we are now able to leverage their extensive networks to widen and deepen our product offering, while ensuring that we maintain our neutrality with the common vision to establish ProfilePrint as the industry’s digital standard for food ingredients globally,” said ProfilePrint Founder and Chief Executive Officer Alan Lai.
ProfilePrint is a food ingredient search engine platform powered by a patented A.I. fingerprint technology, rapidly predicting the quality and profile of a
food sample within seconds. Its solution allows sellers and buyers to objectively ascertain the agreed quality of a food ingredient in an online transaction, saving time and money by transforming the onerous process of sending samples for physical checks.
ProfilePrint first unveiled its A.I. fingerprint prediction technology in June 2021 at the Singapore Coffee Association auction, traditionally held in person but brought online due to the pandemic. As brewing and sending samples to the few thousand buyers participating from all around the world was practically impossible, ProfilePrint was commissioned as the neutral technology partner to predict the Q-grading score, taste parameters as well as key attributes such as moisture and density for all the auctioned coffee beans. This allowed buyers to be more assured of a coffee lot’s quality and profile beyond the scores
provided by sellers.
“We are encouraged by the results from trials we’ve carried out in both green and soluble coffee using ProfilePrint. The technology could significantly expedite the quality assessment process to benefit the entire value chain – from farmers to roasters. We also see the potential of deploying this solution beyond coffee and into other differentiated food ingredients of cocoa, nuts, spices and dairy,” said Vivek Verma, Chief Executive Officer of the coffee business at Olam Food Ingredients.
Meanwhile, Head of Louis Dreyfus Company’s corporate venture capital program Max Clegg said that ProfilePrint’s innovative approach to grading commodities has the potential to enhance operational efficiency, while removing an element of subjectivity in the supply chain.
“LDC Innovations is excited to partner with ProfilePrint as they commercialize this technology,” he said.
Despite pandemic-related travel restrictions, ProfilePrint managed to deploy its solution globally to Europe, Africa, Latin America, China, Japan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
“Sucafina has completed a pilot with ProfilePrint with positive results in Rwanda and Hong Kong, and we are honoured to have the opportunity to play a part in ProfilePrint’s mission to redefine the coffee industry, which benefits both producers and end consumers. We are excited about investing in ProfilePrint in partnership with Leman Ventures as it is a major step toward achieving our vision of having a fully traceable coffee supply chain and of being the leading sustainable farm to roaster coffee company in the world,” said Nicolas A. Tamari, Chief Executive Officer of Sucafina.
Attesting to the company’s impressive market penetration in spite of the pandemic, Wong Mun Yew, Managing Partner of Oriza Greenwillow Technology Fund commented: “It is our privilege to lead ProfilePrint’s Series A round, and to work alongside their leadership team comprising excited founders and leading scientists with proven track records. ProfilePrint’s ability to bring together the giants of the industry and work together to establish the global digital standard proves that they have achieved a significant milestone in their transformation journey.”
Daiki Kumamoto, Venture Lead of Real Tech Global Fund, also commented on this milestone: “The rapid growth of ProfilePrint following the earlier investment in the pre-series A round has further validated the company’s value proposition, and we are grateful to be a part of its further expansion into one of their core markets, Japan.”