Getting sick from eating food that has germs, viruses, or parasites is more common than you might think. An estimated 48 million Americans, that’s 1 out of every 6, come down with food poisoning every year.
The same food can affect people differently. Some may feel unwell after just a few bites. Others can eat a lot and have no reaction at all. Food poisoning is both more common and riskier for people with weakened immune systems, infants and young children, pregnant women, and the elderly.
Novolyze, a French biotech is developing products and services to reduce the risk of foodborne infections. The company has now secured €2.2M to accelerate its growth in markets around the world.
It raised €1.2M from private investors, family offices, and business angels, and another €1M from advances and subsidies.
The aim of Novolyze’s fundraising round is to speed up the pace of the commercial development of its Surronov® range of surrogate microorganisms in the United States, Europe and Asia. As they are non-pathogenic (similar to probiotics) and ready-to-use, these ranges of surrogate microorganisms can be manufactured in industrial quantities in dry form, providing a number of advantages over traditional methods.
Traditional sampling-based control methods are not sufficient to guarantee
the microbiological safety of a processed food product because pathogenic microorganisms are often present highly sporadically so the probability of detecting them is extremely low using this approach.
Therefore, Novolyze has developed ready-to- use ranges of surrogate microorganisms geared to a wide variety of food products. These surrogate ranges are non-pathogenic microorganisms mimicking the behavior of food pathogens such as salmonella, listeria and E. coli.
Karim-Franck Khinouche, Novolyze’s Chief Executive Officer and founder, commented : “We are delighted to announce today further investment from our historical shareholders and by new investors, who have seen our innovative approach and our growth potential in our target markets. Our ready-to-use products represent a major competitive advantage as we are able to offer effective control systems tailored to upstream risk processes in the agrifood industry and to enhance consumer protection even further, against the backdrop of the current focus on food safety.”
