Biosecurity startup ExoFlare has closed a $5.3 million capital raise to develop its online platform for tracking threats in the agriculture and food supply chain.
The seed raise was led by Sydney-based Salus Ventures and attracted funding from Woolworths’ venture capital fund W23, Orange-based agrifood investor Cultiv8, and CIA-founded In-Q-Tel.
The biosecurity threat management platform replaces paper records for tracking visitors and other movements for agricultural producers, transporters and processors.
The firm was co-founded in 2022 by Adrian Turner, a former chief executive of both CSIRO’s Data61 and Silicon Valley cybersecurity firm Mocana, with strategic risk expert Chris Aitken, also a veteran of Silicon Valley.
Based in Sydney, ExoFlare has two products targeting biosecurity risks associated with people movements and transport journeys.
The products already have customers in the pork, sheep, cattle, goat, poultry and egg sectors. Further development of the platform will incorporate data-driven predictive technology and genomics-based diagnostics to support detection of biosecurity threats.
Mr Turner said “the industry-led biosecurity threat management category is going to be critical to protecting the $80 billion-dollar domestic agriculture sector” and establishes a new export industry for Australia.
He believes the commercial opportunities of biosecurity will follow a similar trajectory to cybersecurity.
“Twenty-five years ago, there was no cybersecurity sector. It’s now a US$180 billion a year global category, there’s a chief cybersecurity officer in the C-suites of the world’s biggest businesses, breaches have caused huge economic and reputational damage, and cybersecurity is an ever-present consideration for Boards,” Mr Turner said.
“We believe biosecurity threat management will become as important as cybersecurity as a category, and Australia is best positioned to be the global leader in its development.”
Dan Bennett, general partner of Salus Ventures, said the “exceptional qualities, values and reputations” of ExoFlare’s co-founders “drove us to lead the investment in the Seed Round”.
“ExoFlare’s highly differentiated data-driven and extensible biosecurity threat management solution will play a fundamental role in securing global food supply chains,” he said.
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