Biofabrication Firm MicroCyto Secures Nearly $15M in Angel Financing
Biofabrication firm MicroCyto has announced its completion of angel investment totaling nearly 100 million yuan ($15.0 million). The leading investor was Matrix Partners, while co-investors were BioTrack Capital, Henan Investment Group Huirong Fund, K2 Angel Partners and Hongshi Capital.
The fresh funds are mainly to be used for building R&D labs, refining and freshening up the underlying technology, as well as the layout and development of product pipelines of active APIs, high value-added natural products and bulk platform compounds.
Founded in 2021, MicroCyto is a bio-manufacturing company based on synthetic biotechnology. It is committed to using low-carbon, energy-efficient and sustainable methods to produce a wide range of compounds for applications in medicine, cosmetics, agriculture, food, livestock feed and materials.
The firm substitutes inefficient production methods such as traditional planting extraction and animal tissue extraction through full access biosynthesis of active natural products to reduce arable land resource occupation and the hunting of rare animals. The microorganisms it uses are engineered and modified so that they secrete various plant growth promoters for application in agricultural productivity as a means to improve the yield of food crops and the color and taste of cash crops. It offers a technological route other than gene editing crops to ensuring food security.
SEE ALSO: StarkWare Reaches $8B Valuation Following $100M Round-D Financing
In addition, the company holds the underlying technology of multi-carbon source utilization, and replaces glucose with easily available and inexpensive carbon sources, offering a solution to the problem of traditional bio-manufacturing – “competing with people for food.”
In bulk material bio-manufacturing, cost is a core constraint to its industrialization. Based on market demand, in-house technical advantages and past project experience, MicroCyto has designed several pipelines of low-cost bio-manufacturing products for bulk materials for the bulk high-end materials market.
