Chromologics raises €1.9m seed round to accelerate development of fermentation-derived next generation food colorants

Chromologics, which is developing innovative natural food colorants, announced it has raised €1.9 million in seed financing led by Novo Seeds and supported by Nordic FoodTech VC and Vækstfonden. Chromologics just recently won the Business Acceleration Academy Award from the BioInnovation Institute in Denmark.

Chromologics, a spin-out from the Technical University of Denmark, is set to change how natural colorants are produced. The company has developed a fermentation-based color platform for production of ChromoColors, its high-performing and sustainable food colorants. The funds will enable Chromologics to accelerate the development and regulatory approval of ChromoRed, its flagship food colorant.

ChromoRed has the potential to be the first natural colorant that is exclusively produced by sustainable fermentation processes, instead of being extracted from plants or animals. Consumer awareness over food ingredients, the rise in veganism and the importance of more sustainable eating habits, has led to a re-evaluation of food manufacturing. ChromoRed is targeting a very significant market opportunity in excess of $2 billion, in an area of high consumer and industry demand. ChromoRed's unique performance has been validated by leading players in the industry, and Chromologics is in ongoing discussions with a number of commercial partners to expand the collaboration.

Gerit Tolborg, Chief Executive Officer of Chromologics, said: "We are very pleased to welcome these strong and experienced investors to Chromologics. Their support provides validation for our strategy to develop better and more sustainable food colorants. They recognize the extraordinary economic opportunity in introducing lab-grown food colorants to the market at a time where alternative meats and food safety is a high consumer demand. This investment will allow us to accelerate the development of our flagship product ChromoRed and maximize the potential of our platform as we develop food colorants that meet the needs of industry and consumers."

Thomas Grotkjær, Principal at Novo Seeds, added: "Our mission at Novo Seeds is to identify disruptive technologies, enable entrepreneurs to build companies and bring them to real inflection points. Chromologics has an excellent team which has developed a truly innovative platform with the potential to transform how natural colorants are developed. There is enormous demand from industry and consumers for these high quality and sustainable products and we have already had significant commercial interest from partners."

Thomas Grotkjær, Principal at Novo Seeds, and Lauri Reuter, Founding Partner at Nordic FoodTech VC, have joined the Chromologics Board.

www.chromologics.com