Polysense, a Ghent, Belgium-based provider of AI-native machine vision and automated process control for food manufacturing, has raised $10.7 million in seed funding led by Felix Capital. The platform inspects every product on the line in real time using inline cameras and automatically adjusts production parameters like peeling intensity or oven temperatures to reduce waste from raw material variability. The capital will accelerate global deployments and product development.
Food Waste Pressures Spur AI Investment
The timing aligns with mounting pressure on manufacturers to cut waste. Clarifresh raised roughly $18 million including a $12 million Series A in 2022, while Robovision secured $42 million in March 2024. FloVision Solutions closed an $8.7 million Series A in July 2025. Polysense differentiates by combining inspection with closed-loop AutoControl that adjusts machinery automatically rather than only flagging issues.
Manufacturing Waste Stems from Variability
Food and beverage manufacturing accounts for 19 percent of all EU food waste according to Eurostat data cited in coverage of the round. Raw materials change in moisture, density, and other characteristics from batch to batch, yet traditional fixed-setpoint machines cannot adapt without manual intervention or over-processing that creates waste. Current solutions rely on periodic sampling and operator judgment that can vary up to 45 percent between shifts.
Closed-Loop System Adapts in Real Time
Polysense Qualify measures every item continuously for dimensions, defects, color, and variation. Polysense AutoControl feeds those metrics into automated adjustments via integration with PLC and SCADA systems. This approach differs from competitors such as Sight Machine, which focuses on analytics without automatic correction, or TOMRA and Cognex, which spot defects but leave adjustment to operators.
As CTO Lucas Van Dijck stated:
"For the first time, food manufacturers have a system that inspects every single product on the line in real time and automatically corrects the process when something drifts. This is not an incremental improvement."
Felix Capital Validates Food Tech Focus
Felix Capital led the round after studying the full food value chain. The firm previously backed YFood, Mirakl, and Pigment. The oversubscribed $10.7 million round, five times larger than the prior €2 million seed, signals investor conviction in a solution already live with Agristo, Aviko, Lotus Biscoff, and Darta across Europe, the US, and the Middle East.
AI Food QC Market Expands Rapidly
The AI in food safety and quality control market is projected to grow from $2.7 billion in 2025 to $13.7 billion in 2030 at a 30.9 percent CAGR, per BCC Research. Broader AI adoption in food and beverages is expected to reach $84.7 billion by 2030 according to Grand View Research. Structural drivers include regulatory waste reporting requirements and labor shortages that make subjective inspection unsustainable.
Competitors such as Robovision ($65 million total) and Sight Machine (~$85 million) operate with broader or analytics-focused platforms. Polysense remains vertically specialized in food with synthetic data techniques that speed new line onboarding.
Team Scales Toward 60 Employees
The company plans to double its current 30-person headcount to 60 by year end while expanding hiring in delivery, sales, and engineering roles. Deployments already span potato processing, bakery, and vegetable lines with measurable results including up to 43 percent reduction in fixed peeling time.