Nuritas, a Dublin-based biotechnology company that uses proprietary AI to discover plant-based bioactive peptides, announced that it has secured $45M (approx €39M) funding in the Series B round. The company has raised $75M (approx €65M) funding to date.
The round was led by Chicago-based Cleveland Avenue along with participation from Grosvenor’s Wheatsheaf Group, the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF), Singapore-based Vertex Holdings, Nutresa Ventures/Veronorte, Cultivian Sandbox Ventures, and VisVires New Protein. Other early backers of Nuritas include U2’s Bono and The Edge, Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff and entrepreneur Ali Partovi.
Based out of Chicago, Cleveland Avenue is a venture capital firm that invests in food and beverage brands, and technology companies that positively disrupt large and growing markets.
Fund utilisation
The latest funding will enable the company to accelerate its global expansion and its work on peptides, a smaller version of proteins with added highly-specific benefits.
“It has been a landmark year, resulting in the expansion of our peptide portfolio, growing the commercial team, and developing key global partnerships,” said Dr. Nora Khaldi, founder and CEO of Nuritas. “Our new investors bring a wealth of invaluable expertise, and this latest round will help to build our US headquarters, continue to expand our team, scale our platform to discover more life-changing ingredients, and accelerate our route to market.”
As a part of the funding round, Randall Lewis, managing director of Cleveland Avenue, LLC, and Stephan Dolezalek, executive director of Grosvenor’s Wheatsheaf Group, will join Nuritas’ Board of Directors.
“Nuritas is led by a talented team and its AI-powered, peptide discovery platform Nπϕ is a novel and proprietary platform technology that offers unprecedented value to the future of our health and our planet,” said Lewis.
What does Nuritas solve?
The Irish company has established itself as the world’s largest peptide knowledge base.
Through its discoveries, the company wants to manage and improve human health and help make our food system better by replacing unwanted ingredients and molecules with more sustainable and natural ones.
Unlock hidden health-benefiting components
Founded by Nora Khaldi, Nuritas uses a proprietary AI and genomics platform called Nπϕ (Nuritas Peptide Finder) to analyse billions of hidden peptides in plants and natural food sources and their impact on health areas, molecular pathways, or receptors.
The company’s platform identifies and develops new bioactives ten times faster and with much greater accuracy.
These bioactives peptides are unlocked from plants and natural food sources with applications across functional foods, supplements, medical food, cosmetics, and food technology.
Currently, Nuritas works with companies including Nestle, Mars, Sumitomo Corporation, and Pharmavite.
Latest discoveries
The Irish company introduced PeptAide 4, the world’s first AI-discovered ingredient in rice (together with BASF). The company also launched two clinically proven ingredients and is being formulated for early 2022 market entry. They are:
- PeptiYouth: Discovered from peas and supporting skin health
- PeptiStrong: Discovered in fava-beans and supporting muscle health.
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