Professional tasters might want to beware of the Aromyx EssenceChipCROMWELL SCHUBARTHSilicon Valley Business Journal

Palo Alto-based Aromyx has built a way to capture scent and taste digitally on what it calls the EssenceChip. It puts human olfactory and taste receptors onto a disposable biochip, with a digital readout. Aromyx says its platform will be invaluable to large corporations in the food and beverage, consumer-packaged goods, chemicals and agriculture industries. This is because it will enable digital manipulation of taste and scent, akin to how people work with images and sounds today.

How it makes moneySales of taste and scent sensors, as well as

sales of taste and scent data and related soft-ware.

Business it might disruptFood, beverage, chemical, agriculture,

wine, flavor and fragrance industries, which haven’t had good, measurable ways to analyze flavor and fragrance.

Management teamCo-founder, CEO and Chairman Chris

Hanson previously founded several startups in the travel and foreign materiel-exclusion businesses and worked for IBM, Seagate, the Department of Defense and National Security Agency. Co-founder and Chief Scientist Bill Harries is also the acting chief scientific offi-cer and day-to-day manager of the Center for Structures of Membrane Proteins of the Na-tional Institutes Of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Protein Structure Initiative at UCSF. Engineering vice-president Edward Costello was previously at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Motorola, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Palm, Adobe and HP. Sales VP Todd Cushman was previously with IBM and Zeneca Pharmaceu-ticals. Chief Financial Officer Keith Milne was previously the CFO of f’Real Foods.

AdvisersJoel Mainland of the Monell Chemical Sens-

es Center; Avery Gilbert, president of Syn-esthetics; Bruce German, director of the Foods for Health Institute and professor of the Department of Food Science and Tech-nology at U.C. Davis; James Kaufman, an IBM Distinguished Research Staff Member; Alex Woo, CEO of W2O Food Innovation; Michael Qian, professor of food chemis-try at Oregon State University; Caleb Fos-ter, winemaker and general manager of J. Bookwalter Winery; James R. Broach, chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State College of Medicine; Danny Dhanasekaran, Professor of the Department of Cell Biology at the University of Oklahoma; Robert Stroud, biochemistry and biophysics professor at UCSF.

Money soughtThe company is seeking $3.6 million

on PropelX, an online angel invest-ment platform.

AffiliationAromyx is in the Stanford Univer-

sity-affiliated StartX accelerator pro-gram.

Potential marketThe total addressable market is esti-

mated at $36 billion and the service-able available market is estimated at $18 billion, based on data from a num-ber of sources including BCC Research, Future Marketing Insights, Perfumer and Flavorist Magazine.

Likely competitorsChromocell and Senomyx

VICKI THOMPSON

From left, Chief Scientist Dr. Bill Harries and CEO Chris Hanson of Aromyx, which makes a sensor array that contains taste and olfactory receptors. It gives a digital readout of what the receptors do when they encounter a food or scent. | Aromyx | Headquarters: Palo Alto | CEO: Chris Hanson | Founded: 2013 | Employees: 12 | Web: www.aromyx.com | Phone: 650.430.8100

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

This article appeared in the online edition of the Silicon Valley Business Journal on September 8, 2016.  It has been reprinted by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and further reproduction by any other party is strictly prohibited.  Copyright ©2016 Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, 125 South Market Street, Suite 1100, San Jose CA 95113

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