Spore.Bio’s Innovative Testing Method Gains Traction with $23 Million Funding RoundThe company recently raised $23 million in a Series A round, following its €8 million pre-seed funding from a little over a year ago. The round is led by Singular, with participation from Point 72 Ventures, 1st Kind Ventures, Station F, Lord David Prior, and existing investors LocalGlobe, No Label Ventures, and Famille C.
The company’s rapid progress is due to strong customer demand, with several commercial contracts already in place covering up to 200 factories. So much interest has been generated that Spore.Bio had to establish a waitlist to manage the demand.
Spore.Bio’s innovation lies in its ability to drastically speed up microbiological testing in industries like food, beverage, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Traditional microbiological tests take days to produce results, requiring a sample to be sent off to specialized labs for bacterial growth. This process can be especially disruptive in a fast-paced manufacturing environment.
The company has revolutionized this with a technology that uses light at specific wavelengths to scan samples and record spectral signatures, which are then analyzed by a deep learning algorithm to detect bacteria or pathogens. Unlike traditional petri-dish-based tests, Spore.Bio’s system enables testing on-site without contamination risks, reducing testing time from days to just minutes.
A key asset for Spore.Bio is its partnership with the Pasteur Institute, which provides access to a biobank of bacteria samples to further improve the accuracy of its technology.
Looking ahead, Spore.Bio plans to manufacture testing machines for direct use in factories, allowing for on-site microbiology testing. This will not only save time but also streamline the production process, particularly for industries like cosmetics, where there’s a growing demand to eliminate preservatives that kill bacteria, and pharmaceuticals, where treatments with short shelf lives need rapid testing.
CEO Amine Raji, formerly a manufacturing engineer at Nestlé, has focused the company’s efforts on industries he understands well. However, the applications of Spore.Bio’s technology are proving to be much broader than anticipated. The company plans to expand its team from 30 to 50 people by the end of 2025, using its latest funding to fuel this growth.
