Tyson Ventures, the venture capital arm of Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale, has invested in Clear Labs Inc. of Menlo Park, California, a food testing and safety company, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
Reese Schroeder, managing director at Tyson Ventures, tells Bloomberg that it’s the company’s first investment in food safety and probably not its last.
“If all goes as planned, this will be in lab settings and help us do that better, faster and more accurately,” Schroeder told the website. “We worked closely with our microbiology lab in evaluating companies, and this was a good first choice for a first investment in food safety.”
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Clear Labs, founded in 2014, quickly sequences food DNA to verify its ingredients or determine whether it’s contaminated. Bloomberg said the company’s technology shortens turnaround times “to 24 hours from three-to-five days.”
The investment is the latest by Tyson Ventures, which has also put money behind companies offering alternative proteins, including Memphis Meats of San Francisco and Beyond Meat of El Segundo, California.
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