ImpactVision
Real-time food quality and safety decisions.
- Total Raised
- $2.8 million
- Latest Round
- Seed
Investors
AgFunder, Acre Venture Partners, Merian Ventures, Xandex Ventures.
Summary
ImpactVision applies machine learning to hyperspectral imagery in food processing to measure freshness and quality, and for foreign object detection in a rapid and non-invasive way. They are currently looking at four use cases for their technology: assessing beef in the supply chain by measuring pH, color, and tenderness; foreign object detection during processing to prevent product recalls; analysis of fruit for ripeness; and inter-species classification of fish.
ImpactVision was born out of Singularity University and has already won several awards including: Startup with the Best Impact on Nutrition, awarded by Nestle, at Reimagine Food's Prometheus Accelerator 2016; 2nd Prize at WIRED Retail's Startup Competition 2016; Best Solution for a Better World at Seeds & Chips 2017; People's Choice at FoodBytes NYC 2017, and the Golden Blender Pitch Award at Mixing Bowl 2017.
Why We Invested
- Great team: Abi and Gustav are bold and talented entrepreneurs. Abi the CEO is a fantastic communicator who is going to be able to help her company stand above the noise. Gustav the CTO has a deep hacker ethic and love for technology that you like to see in a technical cofounder.
- Early mover: The competitive landscape was surprisingly sparse as the cost curves for hyperspectral cameras and machine learning suddenly opened up a new market for their solution.
- Midstream technologies have been underinvested in creating attractive risk-reward characteristics.
- We saw a lot of potential use cases for their technology which could open them up to many large markets.
- While they’re still pre-product-market fit their foreign object detection use case could be a major painkiller for thousands of food processors.
- Great co-investor: we’ve been impressed by Acre which has made some of their bold bets in other agrifood tech companies like Farmers Business Network, Evolve Biosystems, and Sample6.
Company Presentation
Contact ImpactVision
Team
Abi Ramanan
CEO
Abi Ramanan is the CEO of ImpactVision, a software company building a more transparent and effective global food system, using hyperspectral imaging, a technology originally developed for use in space, combined with machine learning. After several years of developing campaigns and communications for a range of NGOs including Stamp out Poverty, Oxfam GB, the British Institute of Human Rights, the Fairtrade Foundation, and Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming, Abi turned her attention to social business and founded two food social enterprises in London, Papi's Pickles and DayOld, tackling a range of issues from migrant employment to food waste and child hunger. In 2015, Abi won a scholarship to Singularity University’s Global Solutions Programme, where she co founded ImpactVision. Abi is also one of Nesta’s 50 ‘New Radicals’ 2016, an UnLtd Big Venture Challenge winner 2016, a British Council Future Leaders Connect 2017 participant, a TEDx speaker and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.
Gustav Nipe
CTO
Gustav has a background in technology, as a hacker and entrepreneur, he built an Internet service provider in Sweden, and also assembled the first 3D printer in the country. He won a scholarship to Singularity University for developing a system to change the online SSL certificate market with an open-source system that validates certificates on top of the bitcoin blockchain. At ImpactVision he architected the hyperspectral imaging classification system.