Annals of Humbug

Fragrance patents? What fragrance patents?

Remember Osmo, the Google Ventures spin-off using AI to revolutionize fragrance? And its voluble CEO Alex Wiltschko?

Sure you do. In Smoke, Mirrors, and AI: A sure-fire way to raise $60 million from investors, I observed that “Wiltschko is not shy when it comes to self-promotion.” He airy, aspirational prose reminded me of WeWork’s Adam Neumann, and not in a positive way.

In Is AI About to Revolutionize Fragrance?: Or are we living in Dot Com Bubble 2.0?, I wrote:

When it comes to churning out bunkum about olfactory AI, the global leader is boy wonder and self-promoter par excellence Alex Wiltschko.

Well, there are new developments are the humbug front. A January 27, 2026 press release crowed that Osmo Publishes More New Fragrance Ingredient Patents Than Entire Industry Combined.

. . . the digital scent design company today announced that its proprietary Olfactory Intelligence technology led to more published fragrance ingredient patents in 2025 than all of the other major industry players combined. The milestone demonstrates how Osmo’s AI-first approach is reshaping fragrance discovery . . .

And what would an Osmo press release be without a quote from the CEO and Founder?

“Osmo is changing the way fragrance molecules are discovered and developed,” said Alex Wiltschko, CEO and Founder of Osmo. “In just two years, we’ve demonstrated that AI can deliver tangible value in molecular discovery.

Well, that would be cool. A patent for a new fragrance ingredient is indeed a tangible achievement. A recent example from Givaudan is U.S. Patent 11,020,333 for “Organic compounds,” issued June 1, 2021:

The present invention relates to indanone derivatives possessing fruity, floral olfactory properties of high substantivity and long-lasting. The invention furthermore refers to methods for their production and to fragrance compositions containing these.

Captive molecules can be big money-makers for a traditional fragrance house, and perhaps even for a “digital scent design company.” So how many AI-produced Osmo patents are we talking about? The press release doesn’t say. What sort of odor molecules are we talking about? No clues in the press release. Well, what are the patent numbers, so we can look them up? No patent numbers are provided in the release.

Okay, so we’ll just search the US Patent Office website.

Oops. No fragrance material patents issued to Osmo Labs.

Okay, maybe it’s a European patent. So we’ll search Google patents.

Nope. No international fragrance material patents issued to Osmo Labs.

Where does that leave us? Is Osmo referring to “patent applications” as “published patents”? That would be slicing the PR baloney exceedingly thin.

You’d think that might be a credibility issue. But you would be wrong. On February 4, 2026, Osmo announced a $70 million Series B funding round.

The round was led by Two Sigma Ventures, with participation from new investors including Valor, Atreides, Amplo, Alumni Ventures, Collab Fund, Lumina Partners, and Patrick Collison (CEO and Co-Founder of Stripe), alongside existing investors.

Perhaps VC firms are run by Galaxy Brains with MBAs who understand that a content-free press release is just fluff for the rubes. Or perhaps VCs are as sweetly innocent as young Dorothy in the presence of Professor Marvel. Let’s see if New Scientist, Quanta Magazine, Scientific American, and Wired follow up with a hard-hitting rehash of this latest Osmo press releases.