DENVER and SYDNEY, Australia, Aug. 25, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lumachain, an end-to-end solution for food supply chains, today announced it has raised US$19.5 million in Series A funding, led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from existing investor Main Sequence. The company has also announced its first U.S. headquarters in Denver.
This investment will allow the company to accelerate the roll out of its world-first computer vision-based artificial intelligence platform at meat and food processing plants across the U.S. and globally. In addition, Lumachain will significantly scale up its team of computer vision and software engineers, and delivery and product experts from the meat industry. Over the next 12 months, the company expects to increase its U.S. team to approximately 30 personnel, as part of a global team of more than 100. Australian CEO and Founder Jamila Gordon will be based in Denver to scale up its U.S. team as it continues to roll out the platform to customers.
“Lumachain’s mission is to transform the global meat industry, for the good of our customers, their employees, and the planet. Today’s investment accelerates our ability to achieve this mission,” said Gordon. “Our computer vision artificial intelligence platform represents a huge step forward for the industry. Built in close partnership with the world’s leading meat and food processors, it creates a safer environment for workers, safer and higher quality food, and end-to-end transparency across the protein supply chain, driving improved ESG and environmental outcomes.”
Lumachain is digitizing the US$1.5 trillion global meat industry, to change how the world’s food is produced for good. Historically, the industry lacked visibility and data in plant operations and across the entire protein supply chain. The industry also suffers a severe worker shortage, and while plant operators are committed to embracing innovation, until now the technology options to do so have been limited, leading to incremental rather than transformational change. The Lumachain technology platform transforms how meat and food processing plants operate to improve food safety and employee safety, as well as increasing yields and quality.
Lumachain’s platform also drives improved Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) outcomes, including improved animal wellbeing and end-to-end traceability data to enable positive change throughout the meat supply chain. The company’s unique ability to connect individual cuts of meat back to the animal they came from, and forward to the box they’re packed into, allows retailers and quick service restaurants to capture provenance and ESG information and share this with consumers to inform purchasing decisions. Lumachain also enables ranchers and other producers to be rewarded for producing high quality meat and embracing sustainable practices.
“We’re excited to partner with Lumachain to support their continued expansion, as they transform the global meat industry,” said Tess Hatch, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. "Their technology platform and deep customer relationships are an impressive achievement already, at a time when innovation and ESG are top of mind in industry and society. We look forward to partnering in Lumachain’s continuing success.”
Foundation customers include world-leading meat processors Cargill, OSI and others, who together provide a significant proportion of the world’s beef, chicken and pork. Another key customer is Coles, Australia’s second largest supermarket chain.
Customer Testimonials
“We’re embracing cutting-edge technology and innovation across our protein supply chain. Lumachain is a key part of our efforts, and helps support some of the biggest challenges at our production facilities by using computer vision and artificial intelligence to drive efficiencies, create a safer work environment, improve the consistency and quality of our products and enable a more sustainable environment,” said Hans Kabat, president for Cargill’s North American protein business. “Ultimately, our goal is to make our people safe, our plants more efficient and our customers more successful.”
“Through Lumachain’s AI technology and solutions, OSI is expanding our innovation to ensure we consistently remain a leader in food safety, quality standards, and operations excellence,” said Mark Richardson, Senior EVP International Division, OSI Group. “We are also proud to use Lumachain’s digitization platform, which allows us to evolve our whole of life traceability to the world’s leading food brands we support.”
“Coles are partnering with Lumachain to strengthen the use of data and insights throughout the whole supply chain, from paddock to plate," said Martin Smithson, General Manager Meat at Coles. “Traceability through the end to end meat supply chain is an important part of Coles’ sustainability strategy, and we’re excited about the opportunity to leverage Lumachain’s cutting edge computer-vision technology.”
About Lumachain
Lumachain was founded in 2018 by Australian national Jamila Gordon and operates from headquarters in Sydney and Denver. The company was recognized as a Rising Star as part of the Forbes 2022 Cloud 100 list. The Lumachain platform offers customers five core modules: safety, yield, quality, efficiency, and traceability. Its team of over 40 software and computer vision engineers, product and delivery experts spans the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia. Lumachain currently has contracts with customers across the U.S., Australia, Europe and Asia.
For more information, visit www.lumachain.io.
About Jamila Gordon:
Jamila Gordon has spent over 20 years in global technology leadership roles, including as Chief Information Officer of Qantas Airways and a Europe-based IBM executive delivering billion-dollar customer engagements.
In 2021 Gordon was selected as one of the BBC’s ‘100 Women’ who are helping change the world. She was named Innovator of the Year in the 2021 Women in Artificial Intelligence Awards, Australia and New Zealand. In 2020 she was named New South Wales Entrepreneur of the Year by the Pearcey Foundation, Australia’s most prestigious tech award. In 2018, Microsoft named Gordon as its global Awardee in the International Women’s Entrepreneurship Challenge.
Gordon was born in regional Somalia to a childhood of deep adversity, with no running water or electricity and not enough food. Drought drove her family to Mogadishu; and when civil war broke out, she became a displaced person in Kenya. She came to Australia in 1989, where she learned English and worked as a dishwasher, while studying IT.
Her inspirational TED Talk in 2020 has more than 1.4 million views.
About Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners helps entrepreneurs lay strong foundations to build and forge long-standing companies. With more than 135 IPOs and 200 portfolio companies in the enterprise, consumer and healthcare spaces, Bessemer supports founders and CEOs from their early days through every stage of growth. Bessemer’s global portfolio includes Pinterest, Shopify, Twilio, Yelp, LinkedIn, PagerDuty, DocuSign, Wix, Fiverr and Toast and has $19 billion of assets under management. Bessemer has teams of investors and partners located in Tel Aviv, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, London, Boston, Beijing and Bangalore. Born from innovations in steel more than a century ago, Bessemer’s storied history has afforded its partners the opportunity to celebrate and scrutinize its best investment decisions (see Memos) and also learn from its mistakes (see Anti-Portfolio).
