Dragon sniffs out scent deal
Efflorus now has the fudning to go ahead with the oud, a new Middle Eastern fragrance (Jason Larkin)
EFFLORUS, a biotechnology company that hopes to cultivate a Middle Eastern fragrance called oud in the laboratory, has received funding from SOSV.
Anmol Singh, the company’s chief executive, and his team have relocated from Toronto to Cork take part in IndieBio, a synthetic biology accelerator programme that provides $100,000 (€91,000) in funding to participants.
The programme is backed by entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den star Sean O’Sullivan through his venture capital fund SOSV.
Singh said that they plan to genetically modify different strains of yeast to produce chemical compounds that they will blend to create oud.
Oud is traditionally harvested from forests in southeast Asia. The fragrance occurs only in the rare circumstances of an agar tree becoming infected with a particular fungus. The tree’s attempt to fight it produces a fragrant sap called oud.