NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Food testing and analytics firm Clear Labs announced it has raised $13 million in a Series B financing round.
Wing VC led the round, with participation from Google Ventures, Tencent, Khosla Ventures, and Felicis Ventures. Clear Labs said it plans to use the funding to extend its commercial reach in the US, Europe and Asia, expand its family of food tests, build its commercial team, and advance its software.
The firm is offering next-generation sequencing testing for food manufacturers and retailers. In a statement, Clear Labs said its analytics pipeline will translate molecular testing into actionable information for its customers.
"This new funding will help us reach food companies on a global scale," Clear Labs Co-Founder and CEO Sasan Amini added. "Both our family of NGS-based food tests and software analytics offerings have huge implications for the scalability and accessibility of food safety and quality measures."
Michael Taylor, a former US Food and Drug Administration deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine and newly appointed member of Clear Labs' board of directors, added that as sequencing costs go down and speed goes up, "it's only a matter of time before NGS will be applied more broadly to improve food safety management systems and prevent safety problems."
Clear Labs was launched last year with $6.5 million in Series A private financing.
Ed. note: The firm subsequently raised another $3.3 million in the Series B round, bringing the total to $16.3 million.