INDIANAPOLIS — A central Indiana startup specializing in fertility analysis for livestock breeders has received an initial round of funding to further its efforts to provide more edible meat protein.
Verility Inc., based in Hancock County, recently closed on the Series A funding worth $3.5 million.
The company’s global platform, Fertile-Eyez, helps livestock producers and breeders detect factors that can help accelerate reproductive performance. The company has licensed the intellectual property from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a nonprofit teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, where it was originally created and validated in humans.
“The Series A funding will allow us to develop our product for swine producers and breeders in a major segment of production,” said co-founder and CEO Liane Hart. “The investment will allow us to reach the point of preparing for commercialization, which we anticipate in late 2023. It’s extremely exciting to have the ability to bring automated mobile breeding technologies into a segment of the animal health industry that normally does not see much innovation.”
Given the rising costs of meat and other products, technology to enhance their production meets a critical need in the marketplace, according to Verility chief financial officer Brian Kopp.
“We are extremely pleased that more investment is finding its way into animal health innovation to bring more efficiency to animal production. We have a real opportunity to make significant improvement in animal fertility, an area where more innovation is needed.”
Verility received $100,000 as one of two winners of the Purdue Ag-Celerator, an agriculture innovation fund, in January. Riley Gibb, director of business development at Purdue Foundry, said the company is a good example of a startup bringing innovations supported by the university to the market.
“Liane Hart is one of many high-quality entrepreneurs bringing Purdue-supported startups to market,” he said. “Verility and other companies are already making an impact in plant sciences and animal sciences.”
Futurology Life chose Verility as one of its top agriculture technology companies in Indiana earlier this year.
Source: Regional startup lands $3.5M investment in AI technology | News | newsandtribune.com
