Eden Bio, a U.K.-based biotech using machine learning to increase protein yield, has raised £1 million ($1.17 million) from a seed investment round.
The company said this strengthens its R&D capacity and ability to expand the underlying machine-learning platform over the coming years.
By using artificial intelligence to genetically optimize microorganism strains, the company improves the yield of protein products. Cutting the cost of protein production is essential, and many companies across markets currently struggle with low yield, whether they’re producing industrial enzymes, therapeutics, vegan foods, custom proteins or media components.
Investment participants
The investment was led by SynBioVen. Following in the round are: Dhyan Capital, Saras Capital, and sustainability investor Stefano Bernardi. Additional investment comes from a consortium of angels, including: Noor Shaker, Sandra Blewitt, Kevin Mascarenhas and Andy Russell.
Founder and CEO of Eden Bio Chris Reynolds said: “Eden Bio is on a mission to tackle the low yield and scale up challenges commercial protein production faces. I’m hugely proud of the results my team has already achieved, and the amazing investors joining us are the perfect complement of commercial, synthetic biology and AI expertise for Eden Bio, helping us move even faster.”
Richard Kitney, director of SynBioVen, co-founder of the Imperial College Synthetic Biology Cluster, and co-founder and co-director of SynbiCITE, said: “I’m most excited to work with Eden Bio because of how the company is applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to strain optimization, an essential aspect of synthetic-biology design.”
About Eden Bio
The company’s machine-learning platform technology enables the precision fermentation industry to overcome the issues of low yield currently preventing some protein products from making it to market. Reynolds launched Eden Bio in January, 2022. Prior to that, he co-founded the precision fermentation dairy company, Better Dairy, in 2020, where he served as CTO.