Olygose, a nutrition company based in France, has raised €5m ($5.93m) in a round backed by its parent university Catholic University of Louvain (CUL).
CUL, which made its investment via its Vives II fund which makes investments into spin-outs from the university, was joined in participation by food processing investor CapAgro and venture firm Emertec.
Olygose, established in 2009, is developing prebiotic fibres to be included with food, and has been shown to have a positive effect on combating obesity, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. As well as being combined with every day foods and snacks, Olygose’s technology could also be included with specialised nutritional programmes for patients at high cardiovascular risk.
François Delbaere, CEO of Oolygose, said: “Following the pioneering work of Professors Delzenne and Cani at the Catholic University of Louvain, over the past few years, a number of ingredient suppliers have taken an interest in the potential of prebiotic fibres to combat excess weight and related pathologies but, up to now, no satisfactory solutions had been found. Our Cravingz’Gone ingredient, which combines high efficiency with very high stability and technical properties close to those of sugar, offers an extremely innovative solution, tailored to a wide range of food and drink products.”
