“Digital nose” startup Osmo hired three executives and raised $70 million on Feb. 4. The New York company seeks to disrupt the secretive $57 billion fragrance industry by shrinking product development from months to days. With plans to build a plant in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the company aims to “democratize” fragrance-making for modest-size personal care and household-product brands, and even individuals. “Clean” beauty label Kindred was an early client of the fragrance house Osmo launched 11 months ago. “We want to create products that are safe, clean and biodegradable,” Founder Alex Wiltschko told the Brave New World podcast in July 2025. “Our AI system is digesting huge amounts of scent data. And it’s getting quite good at reasoning about what is natural, good, affordable or clean.” In addition, Osmo seeks to perform environmental monitoring by identifying the chemical signatures of problematic mold and volatile organic compounds. Using $8.6 million from the Gates Foundation, Osmo says it has identified more than a dozen better alternatives to DEET mosquito repellent. And there’s a supply chain safety angle: Osmo helps the StockX marketplace “sniff” out knockoff sneakers. The latest, Series B funding round brings Osmo’s total raised to $133.5 million, according to Crunchbase. Wiltschko, who holds a doctorate in neurobiology from Harvard, spent more than five years as a research scientist at Google Brain. He launched Osmo as a researcher in residence at Google Ventures. The former Twitter researcher has also cofounded two other AI startups, Whetlab and Syllable Life Sciences. The hires…
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