Aroma Bit, a specialist of compact odor imaging sensors, has allocated additional shares to third-parties. The purpose of the funding is to acquire growth funds needed for future functionality enhancements of the company’s compact odor sensors and development of mass production capabilities, business development, and etc.
Funded by Epson X Investment, Kyocera and TechAccel investment in this new capital investment, the company is now ready to accelerate the compact odor sensors’ mass production and expansion of the digital odor sensing market.
Aroma Bit has developed the world’s first compact odor imaging sensor that digitizes odors with visualization patterns from various odor inputs, similar to an animal’s sense of smell. It differs from conventional gas sensors, which can only detect specific substances.
Despite COVID-19, Aroma Bit has seen an increase in business negotiations with customers both in Japan and internationally accelerated by emerging trends such as smart technology, contactless technology, and digital transformation (DX).
Furthermore, the device has a wide range of applications, including the food, agriculture, daily commodities, industrial machinery, mobility, healthcare, robotics, mobile information service, home electronics, and IoT industries. With market applications exceeding initial expectations, there is considerable potential demand for odor digitization using Aroma Bit’s innovative technology.
After this third-party allocation of new shares, Aroma Bit plans to collaborate with major electronic device companies with advanced manufacturing expertise to accelerate development and mass production of compact odor sensor technologies.
Additionally, Aroma Bit plans to strengthen development of new products and services that leverage the company’s proprietary odor databases, and expand its sales and marketing worldwide.
In the future, Aroma Bit will continue to pursue its vision of “Enrich Society by Creating a World where Odors and Aromas are Visualized through Digital Odor Sensing Technology.”
Release of development kit for silicon CMOS compact odor sensors
Aroma Bit launched its silicon CMOS sensor module development kit in January of 2021. Those sensors feature 80 elements arranged on a 6 mm x 3 mm silicon chip (5 types of odor-sensitive membrane x 16 elements per membrane). Aroma Bit Silicon Sensor Technology, Inc., a subsidiary of Aroma Bit manages sales for these devices.
With the release of the silicon CMOS odor sensor, Aroma Bit anticipates increased demand in high-volume consumer applications such as mobile devices, mobility, and home electronics, where its other QCM odor sensor use was previously difficult due to factors such as price and usage environment.
Hordon Kim
International Editor, hordon@powerelectronics.co.kr
