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May 26, 2020 - Economy & Business

Apeel Sciences raises $250 million in new funding

Dan Primack
Illustration of an avocado with a golden seed in the middle

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Apeel Sciences, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based developer of rot-reduction coatings for produce, raised $250 million in new funding led by GIC at a valuation north of $1 billion.

Why it matters: If you buy avocados at Kroger, or at the largest grocery chains in Germany or Denmark, you're getting one with an Apeel coating. It's also now being applied to other fruits like organic apples and limes, and soon to vegetables like asparagus and cucumbers.

  • Other investors were Viking Global Investors, Upfront Ventures, Tao Capital Partners, Rock Creek Group, Oprah Winfrey, and Katy Perry.

The bottom line: "COVID-19 has shown how tightly wound and stretched our food system is, and food waste acts as an enormous tax on it." — James Rogers, Apeel Sciences founder and CEO, to Axios

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