Patina raises $2M Seed to create new scent molecules with AI

What's the deal? Patina, a fragrance tech startup founded by artist-perfumer Sean Raspet and food-and-software engineer Laura Sisson, has raised $2 million in seed funding from investors including Betaworks and True Ventures. The company uses machine learning and molecular design to create new scent molecules — an area it says has seen little innovation in nearly 50 years.

Patina is building a foundational model called Sense1, designed to replicate the nose's scent receptors and create what it calls "the first universal code of smell and taste." Currently, researchers largely use words like "floral" or "woody" to describe smells — an imprecise system that leads to inconsistencies across regions and languages. Working on the receptor level, the company says, allows them to create "never-before-smelled molecules and reconstruct the world's rarest natural ingredients."

The founders met at a scent art gallery in New York in 2024, where Raspet was exhibiting new molecules and Sisson was an engineer building olfactory learning models. They launched Patina in 2025 and are already in talks with top fragrance houses and fashion brands about creating custom scents.

Why does it matter? Most scent molecules used in consumer products today are created by a small number of specialized labs, which sell them to fragrance houses and cosmetics companies. Patina is trying to disrupt this supply chain by applying AI and molecular design to create entirely new scent molecules — potentially opening up new possibilities for the $50B+ global fragrance market.

Source: TechCrunch