附近上门

, which closed on a $27 million round of growth financing, developed its artificial intelligence platform, Forager, to discover phytonutrients hidden in nature.

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led the round, which brings the San Francisco-based company鈥檚 total funding to $52 million since being founded in 2017, , Ph.D., Brightseed鈥檚 co-founder and CEO, said in an interview. This total includes $25 million in previous funding from , , , , and .

Plants produce phytonutrients to support their growth and protect against pathogens or predators. In humans, phytonutrients support health with anti-inflammatory, cardioprotective and neuroprotective activities, Flatt said.

鈥淲e know so little about the plant kingdom, so we want to explore the relationship between plants and humans,鈥� he added. 鈥淲e will investigate how plant-based diets lead to longer life spans.鈥�

Plant intelligence

Forager is able to explore 99 percent of the compounds in the plant kingdom that have not yet been investigated. The platform has already quadrupled the world鈥檚 knowledge of phytonutrients, and is on track to shorten the time of exploration from 50,000 to five years, Flatt said.

All of that will help Brightseed more rapidly innovate to develop products for the consumer. In June, the company signed a to use Forager to find previously unknown nutritional benefits of plant-based ingredients within Danone鈥檚 product portfolio.

Brightseed plans to use the new funding to deepen its understanding of plant compounds, expand its operations to support a growing number of partners, and complete development and commercially launch its first phytonutrient discovery.

The company is also partnering with researchers to look at fatty liver disease, one that afflicts one-third of the world鈥檚 population and does not have a therapeutic treatment, Flatt said.

鈥淭he solution to fatty liver disease is a better diet,鈥� he added. 鈥淲e have already found phytonutrients in 80 plants, such as peppercorn. However, peppercorns add a lot of heat, and not everyone can tolerate that, so we are looking at how to get the phytonutrient鈥檚 essence into something people can tolerate.鈥�

Next steps for Brightseed

Meanwhile, Brightseed has been steadily growing since the company was founded three years ago. It started with discovery scientists and then began to build out a product development team. The company is now bringing on its first commercial team hires to put Brightseed in position to launch the phytonutrient product and expand its reach.

The company will be able to sustain that growth over the next few years with this capital raise, Flatt said.

As part of the investment, , operating partner at Lewis & Clark AgriFood, has joined Brightseed鈥檚 board of directors.

鈥淏rightseed鈥檚 application of technology is transforming how we understand the resources available for our health and well-being in nature,鈥� Russell said in a written statement. 鈥淭hese discoveries already have a major impact on ingredient selection and how we鈥檙e formulating the things we consume every day. This is a new approach that provides a much deeper understanding of the biological connections between plants and people.鈥�

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