Shiru Raises $16M to Expand AI Protein Discovery Platform Across Industries

Artificial intelligence startup Shiru has closed a $16M Series B round to broaden its ingredient portfolio and expand its protein discovery marketplace.

Months after launching an AI-powered protein discovery platform for companies, Californian startup Shiru is already gunning for expansion with a $16M capital injection.

The Series B round was led by longtime investor S2G Ventures, with CPT Capital, Lux Capital, Nourish Ventures, and Meach Cove Capital also participating. It takes the company’s total raised to $36M, and will fuel Shiru’s plans to expand its ingredient portfolio and enhance the ProteinDiscovery.ai marketplace through commercial partnerships and new offerings.

“While we’re starting with proteins, our vision extends far beyond,” said Shiru founder and CEO Jasmine Hume. “ProteinDiscovery.ai is just the beginning. We’re building a comprehensive platform that will revolutionize ingredient discovery across multiple molecular classes, driving innovation that benefits both industry and consumers.”

Shiru eyes wider horizons for protein discovery platform

ProteinDiscovery.ai, which came online in May, hosts the world’s largest database of plant-derived and microbial proteins. It enables corporate partners to swiftly identify and test highly functional, natural ingredients.

The platform combines the power of AI with an extensive database of natural protein sequences and automated biochemistry workflows, allowing companies to search discover, pilot and buy from a database of over 33 million molecules ranging from food and agriculture to personal care and advanced materials.

The marketplace “dramatically” reduces R&D and product development costs while accelerating the time to market and increasing the functional capabilities of nature-identical products.

“Our technology dramatically reduces development timelines and costs, empowering R&D teams to revolutionise products, categories and industries through our platform, enabling valuable innovation and competitive advantage,” said Hume.

Shiru’s innovations are fuelled by its Flourish technology, which discovers ingredients and seeds up the development of high-performance sustainable products like vegan casein, sweet proteins, methylcellulose alternatives, or structuring proteins.

The latest funding round will also help expand its product portfolio. It has previously launched OleoPro, a structured fat alternative made from unsaturated oils and a blend of plant proteins called uPro, which mimics animal fats for plant-based meat, dairy and cosmetics applications. The innovation can cut saturated fat content by 80%, and recently received a patent in the US.

Artificial intelligence powering the future of food

The company has initiated partnerships with several global leaders. With Griffith Foods, it is looking to to discover, pilot and scale planet-friendly food ingredients, while its collaboration with Ajinomoto Health and Nutrition is centred around developing and scaling up sweet proteins.

The protein discovery platform was last month named by Time Magazine as one of 2024’s Best Inventions. “ProteinDiscovery.ai represents a fundamental shift in how we identify and develop sustainable ingredients,” Hume said in response to the honour. “This recognition affirms our mission to harness AI for creating better, more sustainable products that benefit both industry and our planet.”

Shiru is among a number of startups harnessing AI to safeguard the future of food in the face of the climate emergency. Irish biotech firm Nuritas, for example, is using precision AI tech to identify and commercialise rare plant-based peptides faster than the industry standard, while vegan cheesemaker Climax Foods employs machine learning to reverse-engineer what makes cheese taste good.

Chilean food tech unicorn NotCo similarly makes use of an AI platform called Giuseppe to match thousands of different plant-based ingredients and find the combinations best suited to replace animal-based foods. The technology powers its plant-based dairy and meat products, as well as the hot dogs, cheeses, and mac and cheese products it has co-produced with The Kraft Heinz Company.

And last month, NotCo partnered with fragrance and flavour giant Cramer to launch an AI-powered fragrance formulator – proving that fields beyond the food industry are also fertile for AI technology startups.

“AI-powered discovery isn’t only the future of ingredient innovation – it’s here today, and we’re eager to expand our capabilities across flavour, skincare and agriculture,” said Hume.