Clear Labs, a US-based provider of food analytics software, raised $13m in series B funding on Tuesday from investors including internet company Tencent and internet technology conglomerate Alphabet.
The round was led by Wing VC, with participation from fellow venture capital firms Khosla Ventures and Felicis Ventures. Alphabet took part through its early-stage investment unit, GV.
Clear Labs, which was established in 2013, has developed a platform that combines advanced molecular diagnostics with data science to enable retailers and food producers to assess the safety and quality of their products.
The funding will support further software development, the addition of more tests to the platform and an expansion of Clear Labs’ commercial operations.
Michael Taylor, former deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine at US regulator Food and Drug Administration, has joined the company’s board of directors in conjunction with the round.
Clear Labs had already received $6.5m in a September 2015 series A round co-led by Khosla Ventures and Felicis Ventures.
Sasan Amini, co-founder and chief executive of Clear Labs, said: “Our mission is to help our customers mitigate risk through data-driven intelligence.
“Both our family of next-generation sequencing-based food tests and software analytics offerings have huge implications for the scalability and accessibility of food safety and quality measures. This new funding will help us reach food companies on a global scale.”