Sensorygen Closes $1.5M Funding; AI-Powered Life Science Startup Advances Its Natural Insect Repellent

Sensorygen, a company utilizing computational biology and artificial intelligence to discover natural compounds with improved efficacy, safety, & sensorial properties for use in everyday products, has closed $1.5 million in equity funding. The investment will be used to complete the final phase of testing for the company’s market-disrupting, natural insect repellent and towards obtaining approval from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

“This funding will provide Sensorygen with the ability to complete our pursuit of EPA regulatory approval for our patented, all-natural insect repellent as well as help us to make significant progress in the agriculture repellent, sweet enhancer, and flavor/fragrance market segments,” says Sensorygen CEO, Thomas Stone. 

Sensorygen’s natural, broad-spectrum insect repellent has qualities that position it to be a superior replacement for synthetic chemicals on the basis of toxicity, efficacy, and cosmetic properties. In independent laboratory tests, this non-toxic natural repellent exceeds the protection time of DEET by nearly double, does not damage synthetic fabrics or plastics, and is pleasant to smell.

Through machine learning, Sensorygen has created a substantial IP portfolio of natural compounds for many human and insect applications. This technology is based on seminal work from Sensorygen founder, Dr. Anandasankar Ray’s laboratory at the University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside) and is exclusively licensed from UC Riverside. This technology allows for highly-effective screening of compounds to find superior replacements for harmful and harsh chemicals. 

The funding round was led by Vertical Venture Partners of Palo Alto, California, who also manage the UC Riverside affiliated Highlander Venture Fund.   

“Sensorygen has built an impressive and patented compound library around natural insect repellency and insecticide, nutraceutical, and human taste and scent coupled with an AI-driven, computational neurobiology technology platform that continues to produce deeply interesting results,” said Dave Schwab, Founder and Managing Director at Vertical Venture Partners. “We are proud to have led the round and support their growth. And we look forward to collaborating with their management team to introduce and market consumer demanded natural molecules, compounds and formulations.”