Aryballe has announced that it is looking for strategic partners to support its business growth, in digital olfaction, or the creation of an artificial nose that can sense scents or odors and transform them into actionable data.
According to Aryballe Founder and CEO Tristan Rousselle, the company, which was founded in 2014, combines nanotechnology and biotechnology to mimic the human sense of smell. For humans, olfaction is based on learning, especially in youth. Inside the nose, specific receptors for volatile organic compounds bind to those receptors and transmit the signal to the brain. Each time a new smell is detected, a pattern is generated into memory, which is then associated with the object that produces that scent. Because of that memory, the person is more likely to recognize the same scent the next time they encounter it.
Aryballe's technology mimics this process. A biochemical sensor captures the chemical pattern and uses silicon photonics to transduce that chemical pattern into an image made up of tiny dots, which can be read by the computer and stored as electronic data.
“We transform chemical information into an image, which can be interpreted as data. This technology has numerous applications, including one we demonstrated in 2019. We created an oven that automatically stopped when the food inside was cooked, preventing it from getting burned. We are also working on a new medical diagnostic test, using our technology to detect bacterial biomarkers.”
According to Rousselle, Aryballe aims to partner with companies in two industries, food, flavor and fragrances, as well as electronic sensor technology. The Flavor and Fragrance industry, which has multiple applications for the technology. These applications are transformational to this industry as well as immediately actionable. Fragrance companies usually rely on human “professional noses” to analyze scents, but digital olfaction technology can complement these expertise and provide increased standardization and reliability/repeatability. Smell is also a major component of taste, food companies can also benefit from this technology with regard to products' aromas.
“We deployed our technology in the food industry, and our solution is valued as much more practical, simple, and objective than human olfaction.”
The sensor technology industry, which is dominated by mobile phone and automotive companies, offers a broad and deep playing field for Aryballe’s technology. Aryballe is familiar with the players in the field, as two of its current investors are giants in the South Korean mobile phone and vehicle industries. Rousselle says the company is open to working with major sensor companies,all over the world, since it has affiliates in the US, Europe and Asia. The partners in the sensor industry will benefit from the unique technology developed by Aryballe as it is reliably scalable within any standard manufacturing process.
“We are looking for partners that want to gain access to advanced sensors used in digital olfaction technology. Most companies only have simple gas sensors that can detect carbon dioxide or ethanol, but they do not have odor sensors. My prediction is that, in the near future, at least one-third of robots will be equipped with odor sensors, especially these used for home cleaning.”
Aryballe is led by a multidisciplinary team of experts as well as having a portfolio of at least 45 patents. By partnering with Aryballe, companies can contribute to the digital transformation of the flavor and fragrance industry, giving them easier and comprehensive access to huge amounts of data that will boost the development of their products and services.
“Companies have long tried to mimic the human sense of smell, but most have failed up to now. Many prototypes were tested but they could only get them to work in the lab. We at Aryballe spent a lot of time and effort to industrialize our product and make it work outside the lab. The technology is robust, repeatable, and reproducible, and one sensor can generate thousands of measurements,” Rousselle says.
Media contact:
Name: Tristan Rousselle
Email:[email protected]
