Food companies need stable natural colors that can replace synthetic dyes across heat, pH and processing conditions.
R&D Focus
Fungal precision fermentation and natural food colorants.
Innovative Solution
Engineered fungi produce high-performance color molecules through fermentation rather than agricultural extraction.
Solution Effectiveness
Red+ is reported to remain stable across pH 3 to 9 and heat-processing conditions. The company states that its color platform can address more than 90% of applications currently served by artificial colors.
Investment Funding
Last Funding Stage
Seed
Total Funding Amount
$7.47M
Last Funding Amount
$6.4 M
Last Funding Date
2/23/2025
Startup Stage
Early Stage
Lead Investors
Allen Miner, Be8 Ventures, Boro Capital, CJ CheilJedang, Dr. Oetker
People
Founders
Ricardo Cassini
Mauricio Braia
CEO
Ricardo Cassini
About
Michroma is an operator of a fungal food platform intended to produce natural colorants
Products
Product
Red+ natural red colorant and a pipeline of fermented natural colors.
Star Product
Red+, because it is the lead ingredient demonstrating stability across broad food-processing conditions.
Demo Product or Complete Product?
Ingredient scale-up and customer-commercialization stage; samples and application development are available.
Future Plan
Market Expansion
Scaling production and regulatory/commercial entry for food and beverage markets in the Americas and other regions.
Investment Funding
$6.4 million seed round announced in 2023 to accelerate development and scale-up.
Awards and Recognitions
Awards
Fi Global Most Innovative Food or Beverage Ingredient award, 2020.
M&A and Collabs
Collab
CJ CheilJedang: scale-up and commercialization of precision-fermented natural colors.
Collab
Food and beverage manufacturers: application testing and product reformulation.
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