SafeTraces Secures $6.5 Million Series A Financing Round Led by Omidyar Network to Advance Disruptive On-Food Source Assurance Solutions

PLEASANTON, Calif., Oct. 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SafeTraces, Inc., a San Francisco Bay Area based company that provides ground-breaking food source assurance solutions, announced that it completed a $6.5 million Series A financing round. Omidyar Network led the investment round with participation from existing and new investors, including UL Ventures, S2G Ventures, Maumee Ventures, City Light Capital, and Tuscan Management. The round brings SafeTraces' total investment since launching its revolutionary food safety technology to $8.5 million and will enable the company to aggressively expand its sales efforts as well as accelerate its product development. SafeTraces welcomes Omidyar Network Venture Partner Rob Veres to its Board of Directors.

Omidyar Network, launched by eBay Founder Pierre Omidyar and Pam Omidyar, invests in innovative organizations to catalyze economic and social change. "SafeTraces provides innovative, low-cost solutions to improving food safety and reducing food waste at a time when the global food supply chain puts increasing pressure on food safety," said Rob Veres, Venture Partner with Omidyar Network. "SafeTraces has a unique offering that we believe will have far-reaching benefits, ensuring the affordable integrity of food and other agricultural products."

"SafeTraces' commitment to advancing safety and transparency in the food supply chain aligns perfectly with UL's mission of enabling safe living and working environments," said Simin Zhou, VP & Managing Director of UL Ventures. "We are delighted to partner with SafeTraces to develop the next generation of assurance solutions."

"We are excited to close this round with such a world-class syndicate of investors. Their expertise and understanding of market drivers in the global food industry are testament to the immediate demand for our solutions. Together, we will capture the market potential and build a great company," said Anthony Zografos, SafeTraces Founder and CEO.

SafeTraces' on-food source assurance solutions, SafeTracerstm and SaniTracerstm, use seaweed DNA-based tags that provide producers, processors, and consumers with visibility into food origin and safety. SafeTracerstm are invisible, edible, tasteless FDA-approved barcodes that are applied directly to the food, not the cardboard, and deliver complete source information in minutes, instead of days or weeks as with conventional technologies. SaniTracerstm are food-safe DNA-based tags that behave like pathogens during produce sanitation and facility sanitization. They provide processors with an unprecedented level of transparency and confidence into their sanitization process, on-site and in minutes, rather than in hours or days as with existing off-site tests.

Key benefits of the SafeTraces solutions include:

• Brand protection and reduced recalls costs for producers, processors, and wholesalers
• Maintenance of supply chain integrity and transparency for importers, processors, and wholesalers
• In-house control over food safety during food processing and sanitation
• Source verification at the retail level to maintain consumer confidence

SafeTraces has exceeded growth plans to date and has already signed several large national and global commercial and pilot customers over the past six months.  In addition, the US FDA recently granted SafeTraces a prestigious multi-year SBIR Phase II grant to advance commercialization of SaniTracerstm for verification of sanitation of fresh produce. This grant is further proof that there is an urgent need for the SaniTracerstm solution in an environment where newly implemented government regulations (FSMA) put increased pressure on industry to improve their safety processes.

About SafeTraces

SafeTraces provides the only on-food source assurance solutions that protect producers, processors, and consumers. The company is committed to improving food safety by providing complete low-cost solutions that deliver results in minutes. Its solutions enable customers to gain full transparency into the food source, protect their brand, and reduce processing and recall costs.

SafeTraces was founded in 2013 by Anthony Zografos and has grown into an expert team of entrepreneurs, scientists, and engineers dedicated to disrupting the food safety industry. SafeTraces' technology is patent-protected with four issued US patents, two pending US applications, and two international PCT applications.

Learn more about SafeTraces at www.safetraces.com

SOURCE SafeTraces, Inc.