4 years ago
FabricNano Secures $12.5M for Sustainable Biomanufacturing Technology
London biotech FabricNano raises $12.5 million in a Series A round, with European VC Atomico leading the investment
The company is focused on biomanufacturing commodity chemicals, aiming to replace fermented and petrochemical products.
ProblemTechnology
"The current methods of producing biochemicals and biofuels are based on microbial fermentation, which has limitations like scaling challenges, mismatch of cellular and engineering objectives, and more. Cell-based fermentation is good at producing chemicals that cost more than $20 per kg, but it struggles to produce chemicals that cost less than $5/kg, which is a huge market opportunity. The world needs a better and more sustainable way to manufacture common commodity materials to ensure a better future for the planet."
Solution
"FabricNano is building technology to enable manufacturers to synthesise any material from enzymes sustainably. They are using a new technology stack called “cell-free” to biomanufacture things like bioplastics, biofuels, and other common commodity chemicals. Their cell-free system can convert 100% of input hydrocarbon to the final product, is industrial by design, and has no problems if the input hydrocarbon is dirty and impure. They have created a DNA-based flow reactor to produce biochemicals by engineering enzymes to bind directly to DNA, providing deeper flexibility. This has reduced the cost of biomanufacturing through various innovations that vastly improve the efficiency of the cell-free biomanufacturing process."
