The Eindhoven-based deep-tech company MantiSpectra, a Spinoff of the Eindhoven University of Technology, has successfully secured €4 million in funding. The 2023 Gerard & Anton Award-winning start-up wants to use the money to support its mission of enabling the adoption of near-infrared spectroscopy everywhere.
Innovation Industries and PhotonVentures led the funding round. Together with the support from the PhotonDelta National Growth Fund program, this capital injection aims to drive MantiSpectra toward global commercialization and widespread adoption of its breakthrough spectral sensing platform.
MantiSpectra has developed Spectral Sensors on a Chip, the ChipSenseTM, that replaces and augments traditional bulky spectrometers, enabling compact, portable, and cost-effective material analysis everywhere. Using artificial intelligence, MantiSpectra’s platform enables accurate and rapid material composition analysis directly where it is needed. This includes applications in agrifood production processes, recycling facilities to differentiate among plastics and fibers, process analytics for real-time control, and new consumer devices enhanced by real-time accurate data that can change the way individuals experience the world around them.
Customers
MantiSpectra already has customers and partners actively using their spectral platform in more than twenty countries, including Fortune 500 companies and three of the world’s top 10 food and beverage companies. Their core innovation has been recognized with multiple awards, including the International Industrial Hermes Startup Award, the Rabobank Sustainable Innovation Award, and the recent Gerard & Anton Award.
The recent investment marks a significant milestone for the company and will be utilized to scale its semiconductor platform and support the existing customers toward mass production. With the new capital infusion, MantiSpectra aims to accelerate the scale-up of the fabrication phase, increase its production capacity to support high-volume application cases and develop database libraries for turn-key solutions.
Mass market adoption
Vincent Kamphorst, Investment Director at Innovation Industries: “MantiSpectra’s unique miniaturized photonics solution can enable mass market adoption of spectroscopy towards consumer-level scale. This can make a huge positive impact, with applications in healthy living and food waste reduction, to name just a few.”
Pieter Klinkert, partner at PhotonVentures: “MantiSpectra is a great example of unique Integrated Photonics applications. It underlines the difference and impact of Integrated Photonics in leading sensing applications. We have been working together with MantiSpectra’s team since 2020, and they are as stellar as their technology.”