SINGAPORE – ProfilePrint, a patented food ingredient A.I. fingerprint platform, announced today the closing of its Series A funding round at a valuation over three times its pre-series A round last year. ProfilePrint is 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.
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).
ProfilePrint’s fingerprint technology
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. ProfilePrint’s 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 (see video here).
The potential of the ProfilePrint technology
Mr. Vivek Verma, CEO of the coffee business at Olam Food Ingredients (ofi) shared: “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.”
Max Clegg, Head of Louis Dreyfus Company’s corporate venture capital program added: “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.”
An investment to reinvent the coffee industry thanks to ProfilePrint
Despite pandemic-related travel restrictions, ProfilePrint managed to deploy its solution globally to Europe, Africa, Latin America, China, Japan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Mr. Nicolas A. Tamari, CEO of Sucafina commented: “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.”
With this funding round completed, the company plans to use the proceeds to expand the team, invest in R&D to meet the growing demand for its services, and ramp up its international expansion.
“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 & CEO, Mr. Alan Lai.
A multiple partership for a promising technology
Attesting to the company’s impressive market penetration in spite of the pandemic, Dr. 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.”
Mr. 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.”
About ProfilePrint
ProfilePrint is a food ingredient search engine platform powered by a patented A.I. fingerprint technology, which synthesises complex interrelated parameters and sensory data into a single digital fingerprint, rapidly predicting quality and profile of a food sample within seconds. With 5g of the sample, the analyser acquires the unique fingerprint without destroying the samples and provide the results in real time. Instead of packaging labels, reports or QR code, ProfilePrint analyses the samples directly at molecular level and can be used seamlessly by stakeholders in the supply chain, retrieving real-time results from anywhere. For more information, click the following link.
About Louis Dreyfus Company
Founded in 1851, Louis Dreyfus Company is a leading merchant and processor of agricultural goods, leveraging its global reach and extensive asset network to serve customers and consumers around the world, and deliver the right products to the right location, at the right time – safely, reliably and responsibly. Its activities span the entire value chain from farm to fork, across a broad range of business lines (platforms) including Coffee, Cotton, Grains & Oilseeds, Juice, Rice, Sugar, Freight, Carbon Solutions and Global Markets. Active in over 100 countries and employing approximately 17,000 people globally, LDC helps to feed and clothe some 500 million people every year by originating, processing and transporting approximately 80 million tons of products. For more information, visit www.ldc.com.
About OFI
ofi (Olam Food Ingredients) is a new operating group born out of Olam. ofi offers sustainable, natural, value-added food products and ingredients so that consumers can enjoy the healthy and indulgent products they love. It consists of industry-leading businesses of cocoa, coffee, dairy, nuts, and spices. ofi has built a unique global value chain presence including its own farming operations, farm-gate origination, and manufacturing facilities. ofi partners with customers, leveraging its complementary and differentiated portfolio of ‘on-trend’ food products, to co-create solutions that anticipate and meet changing consumer preferences as demand increases for healthier food that’s traceable and sustainable. For more information, please visit www.ofi.com
About Sucafina
Sucafina is a leading sustainable “farm to roaster” coffee company, with a family tradition in commodities that stretches back to 1905. Today, with more than 1000 employees in 32 countries, the Group is a leading player in the world of green, roasted, instant coffee merchanting. With its main trading arm based in Geneva, Sucafina sources coffee from most producing countries, often directly from farmers, to provide its partners with sustainable value across the global supply chain. For more information, please visit www.sucafina.com
About Greenwillow Capital Management
Greenwillow Capital Management is a Singapore-based fund and asset management company, with a primary focus on real estate and venture capital investments in Asia’s fast-growing emerging markets. For more information, please visit www.greenwillow.com.sg
About Real Tech Holdings
Real Tech Holdings is a joint venture between euglena Co.,Ltd (https://www.euglena.jp/) and Leave a Nest Co., Ltd. (https://lne.st/). It supports change makers who give their heart and soul to solve societal and environmental challenges. Real Tech Holding manages Real Tech Fund, Japan’s leading deep-tech focused venture capital fund. For more information, visit www.realtech.holdings
