Strella Raises $4.25 Million to Curb Produce Waste
The Seattle-based startup will expand its IoT produce-monitoring platform to help mitigate global food spoilage losses.
Updated on Oct. 23, 2026 in Startups
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Seattle-based ag-tech startup Strella has raised $4.25 million to expand its produce-monitoring technology. The company uses IoT devices and machine vision to track fruit quality, aiming to reduce spoilage across its international customer base.
Why it matters
The company addresses the significant economic and resource strain of food waste, which accounts for nearly a third of all food produced for human consumption. This funding aims to accelerate the company’s transition toward an integrated supply chain quality platform.
Strella uses IoT devices to measure ethylene gas and machine vision to monitor produce state. Software interprets these real-time conditions using variables such as packing date and varietal type compared to manual, non-real-time inspection standards.
The players
Strella
A Seattle-based ag-tech startup that uses IoT and machine vision to monitor fruit quality for supply chains in 26 countries.
Katherine Sizov
The founder of Strella, who launched the company in 2019 to apply data science to produce spoilage.
SilverBlue
An investment firm that led the recent $4.25 million funding round for Strella.
The details
The technology monitors specific produce types including apples, pears, avocados, citrus, and kiwifruit throughout the supply chain. By tracking ethylene—a natural plant hormone that triggers ripening—and using vision systems to assess physical indicators of decay, the platform provides data to manage shipping and storage timelines. The company now plans to integrate additional supply chain metrics to provide a more comprehensive view of quality.
Timeline
2019: Katherine Sizov launched the startup in Philadelphia.
2022: Strella relocated its headquarters to Seattle.
October 2026: The company closed a $4.25 million funding round.
The Tech Race
Strella operates in a competitive field of supply chain optimization platforms seeking to replace traditional manual sampling with automated monitoring. The company is currently scaling its technical footprint against the backdrop of 33% global food loss, aiming to become a centralized quality data hub.
The startup currently employs 19 people and serves a global customer base, primarily impacting large-scale produce distribution and grocery supply chains. Consumers may see fewer instances of premature spoilage in select produce categories as the company integrates its monitoring into broader distribution networks.
The takeaway
Strella is positioning its hardware-software stack to address the massive economic losses associated with food spoilage. Watch for the company's next integration milestones as it attempts to unify disparate supply chain data into a single quality-management platform.
Further reading
For more on emerging local tech companies, see our startups section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by GeekWire.
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