The UC Santa Barbara-launched food preservation technology developer’s latest round valued it at $2bn.

Apeel Sciences, a US-based food coating developer founded at University of California, (UC) Santa Barbara, has secured $250m in series E funding at a $2bn valuation, according to TechCrunch. Singaporean government-owned Temasek led the round, which included Andreessen Horowitz, Disruptive, GIC, K3 Ventures, Mirae Asset Global Investments, Sweetwater Private Equity, Tao Capital Partners, Tenere Capital and Viking Global Investors. Private investors David Barber, Michael Ovitz, Katy Perry, Anne Wojcicki and Susan Wojcicki filled out the investors in the round, which lifted the company’s total funding to over $635m. Founded in 2012, Apeel has developed a plant-derived layer that can be applied on fruits and vegetables to help preserve humidity and release oxygen to keep produce fresh. The company had raised $30m in October 2020 from investors including Astanor Ventures, International Finance Corporation and Temasek. GIC led a $250m series D round for Apeel five months earlier that brought the company’s valuation past the $1bn mark. Perry and Oprah Winfrey were also identified as previous backers. Viking Global Investors led a $70m series C round in 2018 featuring Andreesen Horowitz, Upfront Ventures, S2G Ventures and multiple unnamed investors. Apeel had closed a $33m series B round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Bio Fund and DBL Partners in 2016. It included Powerplant Ventures, Seed2Growth, Tao and Upfront. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK’s Department for International Development were early backers.

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Edison Fu

Edison Fu is a reporter and Asia liaison at Global Corporate Venturing.