Spore.Bio emerges from stealth and secures €8m pre-seed funding
Making consumer goods safer with a world-first bacteria detection device
Spore.Bio – a new deeptech startup behind the world’s first real-time pathogen detection device for factories – has raised €8m in pre-seed funding led by LocalGlobe to solve the critical health and safety challenges threatening the global FMCG market. The round also included participation from top-tier investors and angels with experience in industry, FMCG and AI, including EmergingTech Ventures, No Label Ventures, Famille C (Clarins Family Office), Better Angle, Mehdi Ghissassi (Google DeepMind), Roxane Varza (Station F) and more.* It will be used to accelerate the development and deployment of Spore.Bio’s AI-powered technology and grow its team.
A world first for pathogen detection
Spore.Bio was founded in 2023 by CEO Amine Raji (a food and beverage manufacturing expert who has worked at more than 50 factories around the world for companies such as Nestlé), CTO Maxime Mistretta, (PhD and Postdoctorate from Pasteur Institute in Microbiology) and COO Mohamed Tazi (second-time founder who sold his previous company Gymlib to EGYM). Amine saw how complex it was to make consumer products safe, with an overreliance on century-old techniques that constrained efficiencies. Together, they decided to combine their expertise to tackle this huge challenge.
The startup has built the world’s first device for detecting pathogens immediately, directly on the factory floor. The device uses advanced machine learning models to train its system to identify the concentration of bacteria in food, drink, pharmaceuticals and cosmetic products before alerting quality managers to the potential risks.
Until Spore.Bio, quality sampling would typically take between five and 20 days with products having to be sent off-site to external labs, at great time and financial expense. With Spore.Bio, manufacturers get almost real-time insights with unprecedented levels of traceability and transparency. This not only reduces cross-contamination risks, and costs but allows manufacturers to address sources of contamination before they pose a public health risk.
Building on momentum
Spore.Bio’s funding round, which comes less than a year after launch is a testament to the startup’s mission and the team’s deep expertise, which is made up of 12 world-class scientists and engineers from across microbiology, machine learning, optics, photonics and chemometrics. Together, they built the first functional version of Spore.Bio’s technology in less than eight months and already signed commercial contracts. The waitlist for the first prototypes is already oversubscribed, with plans to deploy hardware and software systems globally next year.
Our mission is to redefine microbiology and to bring 21st-century technology to an age-old problem. The risks around pathogens in FMCGs are only growing, causing needless suffering for families and detrimental effects on the reputations and finances of global companies. We’re changing the status quo with Spore.Bio by combining AI and our deep expertise in this space. We’re delighted to be working with such a respected group of investors too that have the technical and strategic backgrounds that will help us scale and grow Spore.Bio into a globally significant business.
Amine Raji, Co-founder & CEO of Spore.Bio
Julia Hawkins, General Partner at LocalGlobe, said: “Spore.Bio’s innovation is where photonics and AI meet the same level of bacterial detection as traditional methods, in real-time. It’s not just a technological advancement; it's a stride towards a safer, healthier society and a clear case of how AI can solve real, industrial problems. Every one of us, directly or indirectly, interacts with products from these industries. Making sure these products are free from harmful bacteria should therefore be a significant concern for us all. The expert team’s solution gives industry, manufacturers and consumers the confidence that their products are as safe as possible.”