Phenospex secures EUR 2m Series-A round with Future Food Fund and LIOF

Heerlen 29 June 2018. Phenospex, today announced the successful closing of the Series “A” round led by Future Food Fund, an early stage venture capital fund. LIOF, already an investor since 2013, also participated in this round. Phenospex will use the investment to fund the company’s further global expansion and drive product innovation.

Phenospex builds smart sensors to analyse crops in real-time and in any environment for plant science, breeding and agriculture. The company develops and manufactures sensor technologies and smart algorithms to automate the hardest jobs in plant screening and agriculture to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Today, Phenospex has a mixed intercultural team with an interdisciplinary background in plant biology, agronomy, physics, computer & data science. It sells its products and services globally to leading players in the plant science industry and agriculture.

Technological Leader

“We see that digital plant phenotyping holds great promise for the future of plant science. Phenospex is one of the technological leaders in the field, which has earned the trust of renowned clients around the world. Additionally, the founders have demonstrated keen entrepreneurship and we look forward to supporting them in growing their business and driving further innovation”, says Tijl Hoefnagels, partner at Future Food Fund.

Support and Network

“We are excited to have gained FFF as a further partner. Their strong entrepreneurial expertise and their network will help to raise Phenospex to the next level”, says Grégoire Hummel, CEO of Phenospex. “The financial support and network of both Future Food Fund and LIOF will enable us to adapt our technologies for new applications and further grow our market share”.

From Start-up into Growth

“LIOF is proud to have facilitated Phenospex with several funds, helping the company through the start-up phase. We are convinced their value-added proposition, the management team and extra support of the newly added domain-expertise of Future Food Fund will bring Phenospex into the next step of development: Growth”, says Henk Vroemen, investment manager at LIOF.

Phenospex (www.phenospex.com) was founded in 2011 and is managed by Grégoire Hummel, Uladzimir Zhokhavets and Stefan Schwartz. Together they hold PhDs and Msc. in plant science, physics, and operations research. The company is based in Heerlen and currently employs around 20 people in Europe and in the USA.