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An estimated 40% of all global produce is wasted due to spoilage that occurs before it ever reaches consumers’ grocery bags. And this loss, not only represents loss due to quality or ripeness standards that consumers desire, but also a significant impact on global emissions and fresh water supplies that it took to produce and transport that produce, representing a combined figure of US$1 Trillion annually. Katherine Sizov is the Founder of Strella Biotechnology (https://www.strellabiotech.com/​), a company that builds novel bio-sensing platforms that can predict the ripeness of fruit and ultimately use this information to optimize supply chains by reducing food waste and increasing produce margins. Strella won the 2019 President’s Innovation Prize (PIP) award from University of Pennsylvania, the grand prize at the Arizona State University Innovation Open, and the Venture Award at O3 World’s 1682 conference, and is recently is coming off of a US$3.3 million seed round with some very prominent institutional investors, including Marc Cuban Companies, Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley, and Catapult Ventures. Katherine studied Molecular Biology and Chemistry, as well as Engineering Entrepreneurship, at the University of Pennsylvania.

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