This article has been updated to provide the correct amount Clear Labs raised in its Series B round.
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) — Food testing and analytics firm Clear Labs announced today that it has raised $21 million in a Series B2 financing round.
The round was led by Menlo Ventures and included Wing VC, Dentsu Ventures, Felicis, Khosla, and a number of undisclosed food production companies. Clear Labs — which closed a $6.5 million Series A round in 2015 and a $16.3 million Series B round in 2016 — said it has raised $45 million to date.
Clear Labs said it will use the latest cash infusion to ramp up its commercial operations and expand its Clear Safety next-generation sequencing-based food safety platform, which currently supports high-volume Salmonella testing, to include additional pathogens.
Menlo Park, California-based Clear Labs anticipates a full commercial launch of Clear Safety in mid-2019.
"Food manufacturers and microbiology labs alike recognize that targeted NGS technology will not just fill the gaps left by legacy pathogen testing technologies like PCR, but propel the entire industry towards a failsafe food system," Clear Labs CEO Sasan Amini said in a statement. "This round of funding will help us fulfill all of our customers' needs and prepare for mass commercialization."