US sweet protein start-up Oobli has partnered with global ingredients company Ingredion, as well as raising $18m in Series B1 funding.
Together, Oobli and Ingredion aim to accelerate industry access to healthier, great-tasting and affordable sweetener systems. Through the partnership, they will bring natural sweetener solutions like stevia together with Oobli’s sweet protein ingredients.
Sweet proteins provide a healthier alternative to the use of sugar and artificial sweeteners, suitable for use in a range of food and beverage applications including carbonated soft drinks, baked goods, yogurts, confectionery and more.
They can also be used to cost-effectively complement other natural sweeteners, helping food companies to enhance sweetness while meeting nutrition objectives and managing costs.
The two companies recently co-developed products to better understand the opportunities for sweet proteins and stevia. The partnership was launched following positive feedback collected after these trials. Next month, Ingredion and Oobli will unveil some of the resulting developments at the Future Food Tech event in San Francisco, US, from 13-14 March 2025.
Oobli’s $18 million Series B1 funding round featured support from new strategic food and agriculture investors, including Ingredion Ventures, Lever VC and Sucden Ventures. The new investors join existing supporters, Khosla Ventures, Piva Capital and B37 Ventures among others.
Ali Wing, CEO at Oobli, said: “Sweet proteins are a long-overdue addition to the toolkit of better-for-you sweeteners. Working with Ingredion’s best-in-class teams to pair natural sweeteners with our novel sweet proteins will deliver game-changing solutions in this important, growing and timely category.”
Ingredion’s Nate Yates, VP and GM of sugar reduction and fibre fortification, and CEO of the company’s Pure Circle sweetener business, said: “We’ve long been at the forefront of innovation in sugar reduction solutions, and our work with sweet proteins is an exciting new chapter in that journey”.
He added: “Whether we’re enhancing existing sweetener systems with sweet proteins or using our established sweeteners to unlock new possibilities, we see incredible synergies across these platforms”.
The partnership follows recent announcements by Oobli that it had received US FDA GRAS ‘no questions’ letters for two sweet proteins (monellin and brazzein), confirming the novel sweet proteins’ safety for use in food and beverage products.
Post time: Mar-10-2025