Israeli natural food coloring developer Phytolon has announced that it has completed a $4.1 million financing round led by Millennium Food-Tech with the participation of Consensus Business Group (CBG) Fund, Trendlines Group, EIT-Food (the EU body responsible for food-tech initiatives), and former Elbit Systems CEO Yossi Ackerman. Phytolon's development is patent protected and belongs to Yeda, the technology transfer company of the Weizmann Institute of Science, which has granted Phytolon an exclusive license.
Millennium Food-Tech will invest $1.8 million out of the $4.1 million that has been raised so far and will appoint a director to the company's board of directors. Millennium Food-Tech is the first and only R&D partnership so far to have held an offering on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) and this is its second investment.
Millennium Food-Tech CEO Chanan Schneider said: "We see in developments dealing with making food more natural and healthier, as developments that will change the world of food and beverages. Consumers are looking for products with more natural and healthier ingredients and are even prepared to pay a premium for them. From our point of view, Phytolon brings a complete patent-based solution to the field of food colorants and we see a lot of interest in its technology and products."
Phytolon, which develops innovative technology for producing natural, quality and inexpensive food coloring, has nine employees at its R&D center in Yokneam Illit. The company was founded by Dr. Halim Jubran, Dr. Tal Zeltzer and Dr. Guy Polturak.
Phytolon has developed technology that allows the production of natural, quality and inexpensive plant-based food coloring based on fermentation processes of yeast.
Phytolon cofounder and CEO Dr. Halim Jubran said, "The current financial round will allow us to enter the market with our natural and healthy food colorants that we are offering to the global food industry as a quality and inexpensive solution, while using technology, which is environmentally friendly and makes fermentation processes available as a quality alternative to agriculture.
Trendlines CEO Barak Singer said: "Following collaboration between The Trendlines Group and the Weizmann Institute of Science, we are extremely pleased that the company, managed by Halim Jubran, secured this over-subscribed round in the mist of the COVID-19 pandemic. We look forward to the commercialization of its technology to provide healthier, more ecological and cost effective coloring to the food technology market."
en.globes.co.il - on September 16, 2020 © Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2020