rapidfung

AI and mushrooms in the fight against global challenges

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March 18. 2026

A new collaboration between DTU and three Danish startups will use advanced technologies, data and AI to unlock the great potential of fungi as sustainable solutions to pressing societal problems. The goal is to create the next generation of fungal solutions in food, feed, medicine and agriculture.

RAPIDFUNG is a new research project that combines DTU's expertise in fungi with innovative high-throughput and AI technologies. The project aims to identify and analyze filamentous fungi – fungi that grow in long threads – and pave the way for the development of sustainable solutions based on them.

The project is relevant in a time of increasing global challenges. Food prices are rising, climate change is putting pressure on agriculture and production, and there is an urgent need for environmentally friendly and sustainable solutions and products. Here, fungi can play an important role. The RAPIDFUNG project will help realize this potential and contribute to concrete solutions to some of the greatest challenges of our time.

Technology must close the knowledge gap

Although mushrooms have many documented benefits, there is still a lack of knowledge about the many different species – and how they can best be used. RAPIDFUNG will close this knowledge gap by combining advanced technologies that can both exploit the good properties of mushrooms and limit the negative ones.

"RAPIDFUNG provides access to advanced tools that generate important, high-quality data as well as a unique and diverse fungal collection. This provides opportunities to develop fungal-based products for food, agriculture, pharma and biotech more quickly," says Associate Professor Jakob Blæsbjerg Hoof, who leads the project.

The collaboration brings together DTU with three innovative Danish startups:

  • Reshape Biotech has created a high-throughput (HTP) time-lapse camera robot that can take pictures of fungal colonies over time.
  • BioSense Solutions offers a time-lapse microscope that allows for detailed analysis of fungi at the cellular level.
  • Mycoverse combines HTP metabolomics and functional screening to develop fungal-based solutions for agriculture, food, feed and medicine.

By combining DTU's 40 years of experience in mycology with the partners' technological competencies, the project takes the development of mushroom-based products to a new level.

RAPIDFUNG is co-financed by Innovation Fund Denmark through the Grand Solutions program.

Facts

  • Innovation Fund's investment: 18.1 million DKK.
  • Total project budget: DKK 26.6 million.
    Duration: 4 years
  • Official title: Robotics and AI-Powered Identification of Fungal Solutions (RAPIDFUNG)