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Food dyes such as Red 40 and Yellow 5 often contain synthetic, petroleum or animal-derived products, but in recent years, the $2.6 billion food dye market has seen a trend towards using natural ingredients as more consumers seek cleaner labels for the foods they eat. .
Startups have come up with new approaches to healthy food colors, ingredients and flavors. For example, Vanilla Vida, Spero Renewables and Pigmentum are working on vanilla. Motif FoodWorks is developing beef flavor substitutes, while Brightseed and Equinome are developing compounds and proteins to make healthier foods.
Similarly, Microma is developing new technology for food coloring and flavoring that uses precise fermentation to measure fungal food pigments.
The biotech startup was founded in 2019 by Argentine-born Ricky Cassini and Mauricio Brea, who met at an accelerator program and moved to San Francisco to develop technology for Microma.
Braia’s background is in developing technology for the food industry, focusing on the production of enzymes using filamentous fungi. However, instead of sticking to enzymes, he wanted to do something different.
Brea, the company’s chief scientific officer, began cultivating the fungus in soil media and observed that it produced a red pigment. He applied that information to a new technology to create fungal “biofactors” to efficiently produce small molecules such as pigments.
“I thought this could be a great opportunity to produce natural pigments with technology that allows for high efficiency and low costs,” he said. “We’ve turned that idea into a project at Microma.”
Microma founders Ricky Cassini and Mauricio Brea Image Credits: Microma
The company started by replacing it with Red 40 Red. CEO Cassini said that other methods of producing this pigment, such as beet root or insects, do not perform well when tested for stability at temperature and food pH.
The first product is called Red+, which is heat resistant and stable across the entire food pH spectrum, Cassini said. This means the dyes are able to maintain viability through the pasteurization, cooking and extraction process, which he says is a very intensive process for natural dyes. He said that in addition to using traditional food, Red+ can give color to the meat produced.
The plan is to produce other colors on the warmer side, such as orange and yellow, and transition to blue and white.
The company, like some big food companies, is currently filing requests with the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority to distribute Red+ through negotiations with suppliers. Microma also develops herbal flavors and sells them in combination with colorants, Cassini added.
To kick it all off, the company has secured $6.4 million in seed funding led by Supply Transformation Capital, the corporate venture capital arm of General Mills. This gives the company a total of $7.4 million in venture capital.
Joining Supply Chain in the round are existing investors, SOSV Indibio and GRIDX and a group of new investors, Be8 Ventures, CJ CheilJedang, Fen Ventures, Boro Capital, The Mills Fabrica, Portfolio Food and Agtech Fund, New Luna Ventures, CDD Capital, Groundswell Ventures and Hack Capital. . In addition, a group of angel investors including Alan Miner, Jun Ueki and Steve Zurcher from the Keiretsu Japan platform; Guillermo Rosenthal; Franco Goetia; Pablo Pla; and Matt Travisano.
The new funding will go towards expanding R&D capacity and growing Microma’s team from 15 to 35 over the next two years.
Cassini expects the regulatory process to take at least two years and is looking for ways to generate revenue before then. For example, Singapore has already approved the use of processed meat.
“Red+ is our MVP for the entire platform, but we want to provide complete solutions for companies that don’t just need Red,” Cassini added.
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