HyperSpectral, an AI-based spectral intelligence company with hardware-agnostic solutions for particle detection, announced it emerged from stealth with $8.5 million in a Series A funding round. And HyperSpectral’s Series A funding round was co-led by RRE Ventures and Kibo Ventures with participation from Correlation Ventures and GC&H Investments.
This funding round will enable the company to ramp up the technology’s development, hire key talent, and create wider AI datasets through lab partnerships and testing.
The company has also gained significant interest from multiple industry sectors, with food safety and healthcare being among the most important. In the food safety sector, Case Western Reserve University and the Safe Food Alliance are key partners for the company. And this interest has led the company to initiate several pilot programs in these industries. Plus, the company has secured a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to help develop defense applications for this technology.
HyperSpectral’s technology utilizes spectroscopy to measure the unique absorption and emission oferent sources, and artificial intelligence is trained on large custom-light from diffcreated datasets to recognize different particle spectroscopy signatures in the real world. And while the technology has many applications, HyperSpectral’s focus is on revolutionizing how the agricultural and medical industries detect dangerous pathogens such as E. coli, salmonella, listeria, staph aureus, and others.
Traditional pathogen testing is time-consuming, and farmers and physicians have to ship samples to specialty testing labs to be analyzed. Using HyperSpectral’s software platform and standard third-party hardware, users will be able to conduct these tests onsite in minutes with a quick, non-intrusive scan, allowing for radically faster threat detection.
HyperSpectral’s team is led by:
- Co-Founder and CEO Matt Theurer, an entrepreneur who co-founded Virtustream, a cloud computing management software purchased by EMC for $1.2 billion
- Chief Medical Officer Dr. Adam Saltman, former CMO at ChemImage and medical officer at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- Chief Science Officer Erik Avaniss-Aghajani, Ph.D., former Director of Clinical Diagnostics at Primex Clinical Laboratories
- Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer Lauren Stack, veteran operations and finance executive
- Chief Information Officer Vince Lubsey, a former co-founder of Virtustream
- Chief Product Officer Dr. Simi George, a veteran data scientist and product manager
KEY QUOTES:
“This funding will accelerate our go-to-market strategy for our unique spectral AI technology with real-world applications in food and beverage safety, health care, and more industry sectors. We are excited to prove to the world that our technology not only works but is faster and cheaper than traditional lab testing, allowing farmers, food processors, and physicians to get instant results with a quick scan.”
- Matt Theurer, co-founder and CEO of HyperSpectral
“HyperSpectral is massively improving the speed and accuracy of food safety testing through the power of computer vision and AI*.** This is just the first of a number of significant market applications of this powerful technology.”*
- Will Porteous, General Partner at RRE Ventures
“We have known part of the team for over 7 years, before they founded Hyperspectral*.** They have demonstrated their capabilities as founders, with a proven track record of creating and scaling successful companies. We are thrilled to partner with them to unlock the power of spectral data using state-of-the-art AI and help them expand internationally.”*
- Juan Lopez, Partner at Kibo Ventures
“As a highly engaged member of the Peanut and Tree Nut Processors Association (PTNPA), Hyperspectral has quickly catapulted the topic of AI and how food safety solutions are becoming more data and AI driven in the food industry*.** We are thrilled to watch their ongoing business successes.”*
- Jeannie Shaughnessy, CEO of the Peanut and Tree Nut Processors Association
