Sweet Deal: Oobli Partners With Ingredion, Adds Investment

Food technology company Oobli has aligned with ingredient supplier Ingredion in a deal that will help scale its operations and client base and support new product development. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.

Oobli, based in Davis, Calif., ended 2024 by closing a $18 million Series B1, which included capital from Ingredion Ventures, Lever VC and Sucden Ventures, along with previous investors Khosla Ventures, Piva Capital, B37 Ventures, among others.

Since launching in 2014, Oobli has raised nearly $60 million in funding.

One aspect of the “multifaceted partnership” with Ingredion was developing a sweetener system using Oobli’s sweet proteins because sugar alternatives rarely are used alone in food and beverage formulations, said Oobli CEO Ali Wing.

“One of the things we were not ready to do before this last year was work with other natural sweetener alternatives to see how we could help unblock blockers,” Wing said.

After collaborating in the fall, Ingredion and Oobli decided to build out an innovation pipeline together.

“Whether we’re enhancing existing sweetener systems with sweet proteins or using our established sweeteners to unlock new possibilities, we see incredible synergies across these platforms,” said Nate Yates, VP and GM Sugar Reduction and Fiber Fortification, CEO Pure Circle at Ingredion, in a statement.

Oobli uses precision fermentation technology to produce sugar alternatives from West African-derived plant proteins like brazzein, monellin and thaumatin. Currently, the company has five proteins with U.S. regulatory approval ingredients in its “sweet protein platform,” all are self-affirmed GRAS (generally recognized as safe). All the sweeteners have no glycemic impact and have no negative affect on the gut microbiome, according to Oobli.

Ingredion is not Oobli’s first big industry partner. Last year, Oobli announced it was working with Grupo Bimbo to integrate its sweet proteins into the baked goods maker’s products.

Grupo Bimbo has remained “extremely bullish” on its partnership with Oobli, Wing said, with products expected to launch this year. Although Oobli was not able to share specifics, it has deals in place to use its novel protein ingredients with other CPG brands.

Since its founding by fermentation scientist and University of California professor Dr. Jason Ryder, Oobli’s mission has been to build sweet proteins as a category of sugar alternatives. As part of that goal, it launched consumer-facing products like chocolates and seasonal, canned iced teas to show proof of concept.

It’s all about educating industry stakeholders and consumers that proteins can be sweet and “don’t just build muscles,” Wing said. “These are special proteins that tell your brain that you just tasted something sweet.”

The company has an R&D facility in California but works with large-scale manufacturing partners in Mexico and Europe to produce its sweeteners at-scale. Oobli is also going through regulatory approval in “at least a dozen countries” to bring its products to various global markets.

The new investment will allow Oobli to capitalize that “not inexpensive” process, while also expanding its innovation pipeline and partnership network, Wing said.

“Our goal is to make sweet proteins a foundational tool,” she said. “It’s about redefining that sweets don’t always mean sugar.”