Scentian Bio is reimagining smell as a health and food sensor

Jonathan Good’s return to Aotearoa after years abroad wasn’t just a homecoming. It set in motion a venture that’s now gaining attention from global players, including the Gates Foundation and Zespri.

As CEO of Scentian Bio, Good is leading a team that’s digitising the sense of smell using synthesised insect olfactory receptors. The company’s biosensor technology draws on the natural world, specifically the highly sensitive smell receptors of insects, to detect invisible chemical signals in food, air and even human breath. It’s an idea that started in the lab but could transform both agriculture and health.

Good studied economics, mathematics and physics at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland, before heading to Oxford for his masters in economics. His early career included a stint at McKinsey, followed by founding a social media start-up in Silicon Valley. That start-up, 1000memories, was backed by top investors and eventually acquired by Ancestry.com.

After exiting the venture, Good returned to Auckland where he worked in senior leadership roles for a variety of industries. He reconnected with the University through the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE), initially as a judge for the Velocity Ideas Challenge.

“I wanted to work at the frontier and contribute at the same time,” says Good. “I couldn’t give up my entrepreneurial addiction.” 

He became a mentor with Sprout Agritech, where he met scientist Andrew Kralick. Kralick had spent nearly two decades at Plant and Food Research studying how insects use olfactory receptors to make sense of their environment. It’s a system that is not only highly sensitive but also incredibly specific. At that point, the science had advanced far enough to synthesise the receptors and show they could capture a signal, file patents, and begin exploring commercial applications.

Good was immediately drawn to the idea.

“I was blown away by Andrew’s work and what was possible, and this incredibly creative provocation about what if we digitised smell,” he says. “Insects are pests, they can damage crops and spread disease. But they also have this amazing talent. What if we could stop thinking of that as an enemy trait and instead co-opt it and unlock it for humanity?”

Scentian Bio’s sensors use insect smell receptors to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs). They’re tiny chemicals associated with everything from fruit ripeness to disease markers in human breath. The receptors are reportedly a thousand times more sensitive than a sniffer dog. While that alone is impressive, what really changed the game was when Scentian’s work caught the attention of the Gates Foundation.

The initial email from the Foundation seemed too good to be true. “We wondered if it was a hoax,” says Good.

But it wasn’t. The Foundation had followed the use of African Giant Pouched Rats trained to detect tuberculosis and landmines, and when they came across Scentian’s research online, they saw potential in a more scalable, technology-driven approach. Their unsolicited outreach led to a $2.7 million investment and a powerful endorsement.

The Gates funding provided not just capital but validation. Zespri later cited the Gates Foundation investment as one reason for engaging with Scentian, and the company is now running a pilot through Zespri’s Innovation Fund. The project uses Scentian’s technology to help kiwifruit growers optimise harvest timing. It’s an application that could significantly improve quality and shelf-life while reducing waste. Instead of relying on visual inspections that can miss early signs of rot, growers could use handheld sensors to detect chemical changes in the fruit in real-time. That’s currently delivered through a laptop setup, but the future vision is mobile.

There’s more in the pipeline. In total, Scentian has synthesised a library of 74 insect olfactory receptors. While health diagnostics, such as tuberculosis or even cancer detection, remain a longer-term goal, the agritech applications are moving more quickly thanks to fewer regulatory hurdles. “People tend to think of food and health as entirely separate spheres,” Good says, “but they’re not. They’re both about metabolic processes.”

With paid pilots underway involving five major global food companies (names not yet public due to commercial sensitivity) and a team that’s just grown to eleven, Good sees this as a pivotal moment.

“We’ve gone from science to technology, and now we’re on this path from technology to product,” he says. “I’m really excited about the raw potential of what we’ve built and turning it into something people use and love.”