AgTech Funding and Investments

Nuritas, a start-up using artificial intelligence that is reinventing therapeutics discovery, announced a $3.2 million financing, the highest initial investment ever raised by an Irish company operating in this space. Singapore-based New Protein Capital (NPC), a food and agro-tech investment firm, led the round, which brought together financial supporters from three continents including renowned Silicon Valley investor Ali Partovi.

Using a unique platform that combines artificial intelligence and DNA sequencing, Nuritas discovers particular molecules – called peptides – in natural sources such as food that have scientifically validated health benefits. The company is able to find and unlock these life-changing peptides ten times faster than the prohibitive norm and at a fraction of the cost, thus establishing Nuritas as a game-changer within the health and wellness industry. Nuritas has already developed and patented health-improving ingredients that can address global challenges as broad as inflammation, diabetes, ageing and MRSA, amongst others. “I was told this was impossible and I decided not to listen,” said founder of Nuritas, Dr. Nora Khaldi, “I built a team who believe in what we do and together we made it happen. We have discovered and patented some incredible life-changing ingredients and we will discover many more.”

Emmet Browne, CEO of Nuritas, said, “We are delighted to collaborate with such like-minded and visionary investors to help us accelerate the discovery revolution that we have already started. We share the same vision of dramatically improving life through combining cutting edge technology with intellect. With this investment we will become even better at speedily unlocking nature’s life-changing secrets that have remained hidden until now and as a result, improve global health.”

“A groundbreaking technology, scalable solutions and the ability to use big data mining to identify new natural health-benefiting ingredients for food and other areas, perfectly fits in the ecosystem of companies NPC has invested and is looking at investing in in the future” says Matthieu Vermersch, Founder of New Protein Capital in Singapore. “Nora Khaldi and Emmet Browne, have chosen a highly innovative path to address profound consumer market challenges. From the very first discussion the harmony between our visions was obvious.” he added.

“The intersection of artificial intelligence and life sciences is an exciting frontier,” said Silicon Valley investor Ali Partovi, who has served as an investor and strategic advisor to Dropbox, Zappos, and Facebook. “The day will come when we won’t remember how therapeutic discovery used to be done without DNA analysis and artificial intelligence.”

Source : Nuritas