Announcing Industrifonden’s investment into EnginZyme’s EUR 11M Series A
For some time now the Industrifonden team has been interested in innovation driven by the convergence of technology and biology. Synthetic biology is a field of science that well captures the potential of that union. We recently published an investment thesis on the subject; laying out our view on the field and why we find it both exciting and important for the world’s transition into a bioeconomy. Read it here.
Today, we are happy to announce our first investment in synthetic biology: EnginZyme.
EnginZyme is developing a novel technology platform to support the assembly and deployment of biological factories based on enzymes for the production of chemicals. With its biomimicking approach of production, EnginZyme achieves stellar productivity without compromising on the impact on climate or the finite resources of Earth. Furthermore, by avoiding the cell as producing entity, EnginZyme challenges fermentation based ways to synthetic biology, and promises increased productivity and lowered costs, making it the more economically viable approach.
Within our deep tech focus we constantly search for companies that are pushing the technological frontier with the ambition to become global leaders. EnginZyme is doing that by integrating material science, biology, chemistry, computer science (ML-driven protein engineering) and process engineering in one platform. Beyond EnginZyme’s strong technological and competitive differentiation, three aspects got us ever more excited during the time we got to know the company: vision, potential and execution.
The founding team behind EnginZyme – Karim Engelmark Cassimjee, Robin Chatterjee and Samuel Härgestam – is driven by the vision of a chemical industry free from the dependency with petrochemicals, toxic syntheses and polluting processes. An admirable vision that set them on a journey that could very well impact whether or not we are able to hand over planet Earth to the coming generations in a better condition than what was given to us. And a vision that is well aligned with Industrifonden’s purpose of seeding the industries of tomorrow.
On the potential: the chemical industry touches every aspect of modern life, adding almost USD 6 trillion to world GDP. According to research, the synthetic biology approach could affect as much as 60 percent of goods produced, and EnginZyme’s platform specifically enables such a transition. The blue ocean strategy is a fact – and strategic verticals that are nearest the green transition (e.g. consumer-oriented verticals like food ingredients and cosmetics) offers an immediate and focused opportunity of huge proportions.
Lastly, by precise execution, the team has managed to take EnginZyme from a KTH research spin-out to a company that is competing on the global arena. It has recruited talent from top academic institutions and synthetic biology firms; built technology, laboratory and operations that allow a high innovation pace and product development; enabled commercial interactions with some of the leading firms in the chemical industry.
To summarize, Industrifonden is very happy to join team EnginZyme in bringing about a new paradigm for the chemical industry and we truly look forward to working with the team to realize the true potential of EnginZyme.
Patrick Sobocki, Investment Manager