WORLDTECHVilnius-based Biomatter raises €16.2 million to make AI-designed custom enzymes not found in nature
What happened
Biomatter, a Vilnius-based custom enzyme design company that delivers catalysts to solve real-world problems across industries, today announced the closing of an oversubscribed €16.2 million ($18 million) Series A (an early stage of company funding) financing.
In August 2024, the company announced it had secured €6.5 million in a Seed financing round, and in 2021, it raised €500k in Seed funding led by Practica Capital. Biomatter , a company specialising in custom enzyme design, has raised $18 million in an oversubscribed Series A funding round led by Astanor , with participation from existing investors UVC Partners , Inventure and Metaplanet .
The round was led by Astanor, with participation from existing investors UVC Partners, Inventure, and Metaplanet. Biomatter develops computational technology to design enzymes tailored to specific chemical reactions and industrial applications.
Rather than modifying existing natural enzymes, the company focuses on creating enzymes based on the chemistry required for a particular process. Enzymes play an important role in industries such as pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, agriculture and industrial biotechnology.
However, conventional enzyme development can take months or even years, particularly when naturally occurring enzymes are unsuitable for specific applications. To address these challenges, Biomatter combines computational models with laboratory testing to develop enzymes with properties suited to customers' requirements. Founded in 2018 by Donatas Repečka, Laurynas Karpus, Rolandas Meškys, and Vykintas Jauniskis, Biomatter designs novel, high-performance enzymes from the chemistry up and delivers them to partners in biopharma, diagnostics, agriculture, and industrial BioTech.