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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

phytonutrients

Brightseed Raises $27M for its AI-Based Phytonutrient Discovery

Brightseed, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to aid food companies in the discovery of new nutritional compounds in plants, announced today that it has raised $27 million in new funding. The round was led by Lewis & Clark AgriFood and brings the total amount raised by Brightseed to $52 million.

According to Brightseed, just 1 percent of the compounds produced by plants is known. Brightseed’s Forager AI tool looks at plants on a molecular level to reveal these hidden phytonutrient compounds (examples of phytonutrients include caffeine in coffee and antioxidants in blueberries). Once discovered, Forager adds it to its database as uses that information to make predictions about any implications those new phytonutrients may have for human health.

In June of this year, Brightseed announced a partnership with Danone, which owns Silk and So Delicious Dairy Free brands, to discover new health benefits of soy.

Brightseed is actually in the middle of three converging food tech trends right now. First, sales of plant-based food has surged during the pandemic, so the ability to mine plant-based resources to excavate new, additional nutrition benefits could help sustain that growth.

Second, Brightseed is part of a growing movement of using AI to model and predict unique attributes of food. Spoonshot is using AI to help companies create whole products via data before they even begin prototyping in the real world. And Climax Foods, which recently launched, is using data and AI to develop new plant-based foods, starting with cheese.

The idea with all these AI tools is to do a lot of the heavy lifting via algorithm before experimenting in the more costly real world lab setting. We’re still very early on in this trend, so it remains to be see how effective AI modeling really is.

Finally, Brightseed is part of the food-as-medicine movement, which has people paying more attention to the types of food they consume. In particular, Brightseed is looking at how phytonutrients it discovers can help with metabolic health, cognitive health, immune health, bone health.

Brightseed’s financial health is certainly robust with today’s announcement. The company will be using its new bulked up warchest to invest in R&D of its AI and commercialization of its plant-based discoveries in the food and beverage sectors.

Danone to Use Brightseed’s AI to Uncover New Health Benefits of Soy and Other Plants

Danone North America and Brightseed announced today that they have formed a partnership to use Brightseed’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform to profile and uncover health benefits of key plant sources.

Part of the food as medicine movement, Brightseed is a three-year-old San Francisco startup that examines plants on a molecular level to uncover hidden phytonutrients that can contribute to healthier lifestyles. As it uncovers compounds, Brightseed’s AI platform is then used to predict what impact they will have on the human body.

An example of a phytonutritional compound would be something like the caffeine in coffee or the antioxidants in blueberries.

“We use AI to illuminate the dark matter of nutrition,” Sofia Elizondo, Co-Founder and COO of Brightseed told me by phone this week. “Once you have completed this circle of knowledge. You can transform the food ecosystem.”

Elizondo explained that Brightseed’s platform works for both the sourcing and production sides of CPGs. On the ag side, it can help identify healthy compounds and encourage plant breeding to maximize those benefits. For CPG companies, Brightseed can help source plants that are beneficial and reveal new phytonutrients in existing plant ingredients around which new products can be built.

The partnership with Danone, which owns the Silk and So Delicious Dairy Free brands, will start with Brightseed turning its AI on soy to illuminate the unknown health benefits of soy.

Brightseed, which has raised and undisclosed sum of venture funding, is among a wave of companies using AI to unlock new understandings of our food. Other companies like Spoonshot and Analytical Flavor Systems are using AI to help predict flavor trends and novel food combinations.

But while those companies are looking at existing data, Brightseed is building an entirely new body of data from which entirely new discoveries can be made.

“A lot of technology in our field is built to manipulate nature,” Elizondo said, “There is so much more to learn from what nature has already provided.”