AKA Foods secures $17.2 million seed funding to launch world’s first secure AI system for food innovation

AKA Studio, AKA Foods’ secure AI platform, combines sensory data, R&D insights and AI-assisted formulation to accelerate food product development, support clean-label reformulation, and bring healthier, more sustainable products to market faster. Credit: AKA Foods

Foodtech company AKA Foods Ltd has raised $17.2 million in seed funding to launch AKA Studio, a secure AI platform designed to transform how food and beverage companies create, optimise and launch new products. The investment round was led by AI experts and entrepreneurs Alex Bronstein and Michael Bronstein, marking the debut of what the company describes as the world’s first secure AI system for food innovation.

Based in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, AKA Foods has developed AKA Studio to bring together organisational knowledge, historical R&D and ongoing formulation work into a single, intelligent environment. The platform integrates experimental and analytical measurements, sensory data relating to texture, aroma and taste, ingredient specifications and regulatory documentation, combining these with real-time research insights. AI assistants then use this consolidated information to guide formulation and optimisation.

The company says this data-driven approach can shorten innovation cycles from years to weeks, enabling R&D teams to develop new products with greater scientific rigour, speed and cost efficiency. Although formulation remains a hands-on scientific discipline, the platform accelerates the process by linking structured digital information with sensory evidence. This allows manufacturers to refine recipes with far greater precision and to bring healthier, more sustainable and clean-label products to market more efficiently. It also supports reformulation projects focused on reducing sugar and fat and improving supply chain resilience.

Security is central to the system’s design. AKA Studio operates as a secure SaaS platform, giving each client a private environment that is never incorporated into shared model training. For companies requiring stricter data protection, the system can also be deployed on-premise and air-gapped. In all cases, clients retain full ownership of their proprietary data.

Professor Alex Bronstein, Chief Scientist at AKA Foods, Head of the Center for Intelligent Systems at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and a Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, said the company is “bringing to market a new type of grammar – a language for food”. He explained that the AI agents can connect to external data sources and recommend recipe improvements, something generic AI models “will never be able to achieve”.

Founder and CEO David Sack highlighted that the food industry holds vast amounts of valuable knowledge but often struggles to use it effectively. “AKA Studio gives companies the ability to capture, organise and apply that knowledge securely,” he said. “This investment allows us to expand deployment to enterprise clients worldwide and continue advancing the science behind how food is created.”

The sensory–AI framework underpinning the platform also has potential applications in flavour, fragrance, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, where sensory performance and precision formulation are equally important.

AKA Foods believes AKA Studio sets a new benchmark for secure, data-driven product development and provides R&D teams, executives and investors with a clearer pathway to measurable improvements in both scientific output and business performance.