Keeping food fresh during transportation from the farm to the store has always been a challenge. A startup in the Seattle area, however, has a solution to preserve food and flowers during transport and it recently secured new funding.
On Monday, RipeLocker announced that it raised $7.5 million in a family and friends round. Since launching, the company has raised $21 million.
“Our goal was a small friends and family raise to buy us time to complete our much larger Series A financing in the fall. What’s exciting about this current raise is it includes funds from customers, growers [and] packers, agricultural industry executives and academics,” George Lobisser, RipeLocker co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “These individuals have the background to truly understand the value created by the RipeLocker inside the perishable space.”
Based in Bainbridge Island, RipeLocker designs and sells a container that monitors atmospheric pressure and can preserve foods for extended periods. The container also has sensors and connects to RipeLocker’s software to detect when there are changes in the outside environment. It then adapts by precisely managing O2 levels to keep food fresh.
The RipeLocker container is patented and has been tested with various produce. In one study, the company said that it was able to keep blueberries fresh for up to 45 days post-harvest.
The containers also work to keep flowers fresh and recently closed a deal with a floral importer based in Colombia and Ecuador.
RipeLocker isn’t the only company in the food tech space raising funds. In recent months Seattle-based Strella, a startup that manufactures sensors to detect when fruits and vegetables are ripe and ready for picking, raised $8 million.
