Sensorygen Closes $1.5M Funding
(RIVERSIDE, CA, March 25, 2021) — Sensorygen, a company utilizing computational biology and artificial intelligence to discover natural compounds with improved efficacy, safety, & sensorial properties for use in everyday products, has closed $1.5 million in equity funding. The investment will be used to complete the final phase of testing for the company’s market-disrupting, natural insect repellent and towards obtaining approval from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“This funding will provide Sensorygen with the ability to complete our pursuit of EPA regulatory approval for our patented, all-natural insect repellent as well as help us to make significant progress in the agriculture repellent, sweet enhancer, and flavor/fragrance market segments,” says Sensorygen CEO, Thomas Stone.
Sensorygen’s natural, broad-spectrum insect repellent has qualities that position it to be a superior replacement for synthetic chemicals on the basis of toxicity, efficacy, and cosmetic properties. In independent laboratory tests, this non-toxic natural repellent exceeds the protection time of DEET by nearly double, does not damage synthetic fabrics or plastics, and is pleasant to smell.
Through machine learning, Sensorygen has created a substantial IP portfolio of natural compounds for many human and insect applications. This technology is based on seminal work from Sensorygen founder, Dr. Anandasankar Ray’s laboratory at the University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) and is exclusively licensed from UC Riverside. This technology allows for highly-effective screening of compounds to find superior replacements for harmful and harsh chemicals.
The funding round was led by Vertical Venture Partners of Palo Alto, California, who also manage the UC Riverside affiliated Highlander Venture Fund.
“Sensorygen has built an impressive and patented compound library around natural insect repellency and insecticide, nutraceutical, and human taste and scent coupled with an AI-driven, computational neurobiology technology platform that continues to produce deeply interesting results,” said Dave Schwab, Founder and Managing Director at Vertical Venture Partners. “We are proud to have led the round and support their growth. And we look forward to collaborating with their management team to introduce and market consumer demanded natural molecules, compounds and formulations.”
About Vertical Venture Partners
Vertical Venture Partners (“VVP”) is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm founded in 2015 by Dave Schwab, a 20-year veteran in early stage technology investing. VVP focuses on making Seed and Series A investments in B2B technology companies targeting pain points in specific vertical sectors as opposed to those providing horizontal technologies to many industry sectors. The VVP team has decades of operating and investment experience gained from diverse backgrounds in venture capital, research & development, investment banking and advanced technology. Please visit www.vvp.vc to learn more.
Investor Relations – Sensorygen
Thomas Stone
Media Relations – Sensorygen
Mia Raines
Mia@CoastalCreativeServices.com
Media Contact – Vertical Venture Partners
Doreen Thawley