Biomatter receives € 6.5 million for the development of novel enzymes via AI

Munich — Biomat­ter, a company in the field of synthe­tic biology, closes a seed finan­cing round of 6.5 million euros.
UVC Part­ners and Inven­ture VC lead the round.
Exis­ting inves­tors Prac­tica Capi­tal and Meta­pla­net, as well as busi­ness angels and indus­try experts, are also participating.
The start-up plans to use the fresh capi­tal to further expand the plat­form and create funda­men­tally new enzymes.
Enzy­mes play a key role in various indus­trial appli­ca­ti­ons, such as in diagno­stics, for exam­ple with DNA poly­me­ra­ses, in gene therapy, for exam­ple with CRISPR, in biofuels, for exam­ple with cellu­la­ses, or in agri­cul­ture, for exam­ple with phytases.
Every new appli­ca­tion requi­res a new enzyme.
The design of new enzy­mes is curr­ently still leng­thy — the process can take months or years -, expen­sive and based on trial-and-error scree­ning around small impro­ve­ments to natu­rally occur­ring enzymes.
Biomatter’s tech­no­logy makes it possi­ble to over­come these chal­lenges with gene­ra­tive AI (arti­fi­cial intelligence).
“Enzy­mes will play a promi­nent role in the future of the bioe­co­nomy — they are the criti­cal element that will ulti­m­ately allow us to create new mole­cu­les, cells and orga­nisms for the world. The enzy­mes we have successfully deve­lo­ped for our global part­ners to date demons­trate our ability to go far beyond the simple opti­miza­tion of known enzy­mes. At Biomat­ter, we believe that the unli­mi­ted capa­city to design funda­men­tally new enzy­mes will help shape a better future for all,” says Laury­nas Karpus, co-foun­­der and CEO of Biomatter.
Inno­va­tive tech­no­logy for a sustainable future Back in 2019, the Biomat­ter team published a key study show­ing that their gene­ra­tive AI tool can under­stand the intri­ca­cies of large amounts of enzyme data and use the infor­ma­tion to design enti­rely new enzymes.
This was a signi­fi­cant breakth­rough, demons­t­ra­ting for the first time the ability to create fully func­tional enzy­mes with gene­ra­tive AI.
The Intel­li­gent Archi­tec­ture™ plat­form is the result of these years of research.
Enzy­mes can be rede­si­gned as if on a drawing board: First, the ideal proper­ties of the enzyme are descri­bed, carefully conside­ring the end application.
The enzy­mes are then desi­gned from scratch or exis­ting natu­ral protein scaf­folds are redesigned.
This enables deve­lo­pers of new prote­ins to build precis­ely fitting mole­cu­les from the very first atoms.
This inno­va­tion has been made possi­ble by the deve­lo­p­ment of new gene­ra­tive AI and physi­cal models that are constantly impro­ving at a rapid pace with expe­ri­men­tal vali­da­tion in labo­ra­to­ries to create unique enzy­mes. “AI-powered protein design is curr­ently one of the most exci­ting and dyna­mic areas for venture capi­tal. Biomatter’s inno­va­tive approach to desig­ning funda­men­tally new enzy­mes allows them to break the boun­da­ries of natu­ral enzy­mes, leading to breakth­roughs in biotech­no­logy. We are deeply impres­sed by the strength of the team and are convin­ced that Biomat­ter is a pioneer in the field of AI-based protein design,” says Dr. Oliver Schoppe, Prin­ci­pal at UVC Part­ners. Appli­ca­tion of unique enzy­mes in various indus­tries Using the Intel­li­gent Archi­tec­ture™ plat­form, Biomat­ter crea­tes custo­mi­zed enzy­mes for various indus­tries, inclu­ding chemi­cal biopro­duc­tion, agri­cul­ture, food and medicine.
Custo­mers include compa­nies such as Thermo Fisher Scien­ti­fic, BASF and Neogen.
Kirin, a global leader in nutri­tion and health, achie­ved a breakth­rough in infant nutri­tion with Biomatter’s solu­tion: The colla­bo­ra­tion yiel­ded amazing results in the effi­ci­ent produc­tion of human milk oligos­ac­cha­ri­des (HMOs).
The focus here was speci­fi­cally on one of the most important HMOs in human milk (lacto-N-fuco­­pen­­ta­ose I; LNFP I for short).
HMOs are criti­cal to infant health and provide nume­rous bene­fits such as support­ing gut health, streng­thening the immune system and protec­ting against infection.
The ability to produce HMOs like LNFP I on an indus­trial scale means that more infants world­wide can have access to these bene­fits. About Biomat­ter Biomat­ter is a synthe­tic biology company that crea­tes new enzy­mes for medi­cal and indus­trial applications.
Through part­ner­ships with global compa­nies (inclu­ding Thermo Fisher Scien­ti­fic, BASF, Neogen) across multi­ple indus­tries, Biomat­ter is brin­ging new products and tech­no­lo­gies to market enab­led by its unique enzymes.
This funding round marks a signi­fi­cant mile­stone for Biomat­ter and posi­ti­ons the company well for the comple­tion of its next major mile­sto­nes and future growth.
More at www.biomatter.com About UVC Part­ners UVC Part­ners is a Munich and Berlin based early stage venture capi­tal firm inves­t­ing in Euro­pean B2B start-ups in the fields of enter­prise soft­ware, indus­trial tech­no­lo­gies and mobi­lity. The fund gene­rally invests between €0.5 and €10 million at the outset and up to €30 million in total per company. The port­fo­lio compa­nies bene­fit from the exten­sive invest­ment and exit expe­ri­ence of the manage­ment team as well as from the close coope­ra­tion with Unter­neh­mer­TUM, Europe’s leading inno­va­tion and start-up center. With over 400 employees and more than 100 indus­try part­ners, Unter­neh­mer­TUM can draw on many years of expe­ri­ence in buil­ding young compa­nies. This colla­bo­ra­tion gives UVC Part­ners the oppor­tu­nity to provide start­ups with unique access to talent, indus­try clients and other finan­cial part­ners. www.uvcpartners.com