Biotechnology startup Tiamat Sciences today announced its $3 million seed financing round led by Silicon Valley venture capital firm True Ventures with participation from Social Impact Capital and Cantos. Tiamat Sciences manufactures animal-free proteins using a proprietary plant molecular farming platform. By replacing costly bioreactors with plants, the company produces key reagents for biotechnology companies at a fraction of the cost.
Those reinvented biomolecules are used to fuel the next generation of biotechnology innovations in various fields such as cellular agriculture and cultivated meat, regenerative medicine, and novel vaccine production. These new fields rely on reagents accounting for more than 80% of the production cost. But Tiamat offers key proteins 10X cheaper than the current market offers with fermentation technologies.
“Our technology can help to promote animal-free alternatives not only for food but also for the pharmaceutical industry,” said France-Emmanuelle Adil, founder and CEO of Tiamat Sciences. “Plants are a great system to work with; they grow fast, are small water and energy consumers, and they are compostable. The technology offers flexibility with production for a diversified product portfolio.”
The Tiamat team designed its proprietary production process by combining biotechnology, vertical farming, and computation design to reinvent recombinant proteins. While having already achieved a 10X cost decrease for its current products with lab-scale practices, the company is planning to achieve a cost decrease of 1,000X by 2025 with large-scale production for a wide catalog of products.
With its two operating sites, in Belgium and the U.S., team Tiamat is forging global partnerships and preparing its expansion to include additional local production facilities. The company is already on its way to reach carbon-neutral production. Those strategies will allow Tiamat to reduce its environmental footprint and offer string supplies in a field that has endured numerous raw material shortages over the past several years.
“From regenerative medicine to cellular agriculture, numerous companies are looking for animal-free solutions for their activities,” said Adil. “Our exclusive plant-based production system allows us to answer those needs with a wide range of reagents. By targeting nascent markets on the verge of scale-up, we’ve already demonstrated significant traction for our solutions and an early revenue potential that is outstanding for a biotech startup.”
“Affordable animal-free growth factors are a long-awaited ingredient for cellular-agriculture companies in their mission to bring cultured meats to the market,” said Ryan Bethencourt, CEO of Wild Earth and Tiamat Science’s chairman. “Thanks to its innovative production platform using plants as bioreactors, I’m confident that the Tiamat team will address both the price and scalability challenges on one of the most exciting markets of the century.”
“We follow best-in-class founders into the future as they invent the missing pieces of their industries,” said Phil Black, co-founder of True Ventures. “This is absolutely the case with the Tiamat team. Their innovations in cellular agriculture and biotechnology will advance multiple industries and even the work of other companies in our portfolio. We’re here to play a supporting role in this exciting shift to a more plant-based future.”
To continue its work, Tiamat Sciences will build its pilot production facility in prominent technology research center Research Triangle Park in Durham, North Carolina.
About Tiamat Sciences
Tiamat Sciences is reinventing recombinant proteins to fuel the next generation of biotech companies across cellular agriculture, regenerative medicine, vaccine production, and more. By using the power of plants, Tiamat provides animal-free recombinant proteins at the fraction of their cost with a reduced carbon footprint. The team is on track to become the fastest growing supplier of recombinant proteins.
About True Ventures
Founded in 2005, True Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in early stage technology startups. With more than $2.8 billion under management, True provides seed and Series A financing to entrepreneurs in today’s fastest growing markets. To learn more, visit www.trueventures.com.
About Social Impact Capital
Social Impact Capital is a venture capital fund specialized in impact investing, which they define as investments that can deliver top decile returns in addition to a positive social impact. They focus on the “essentials of human need” — energy, water, food, health, environment, education, housing, access to capital, and social justice.
About Cantos
Cantos is a first-round venture capital firm with $50 million under management that invests where the innovation curve casts previously intractable problems in a new light –– where new technology might positively impact billions. At a time when venture capital has become synonymous with growth equity, Cantos exists to take the first steps with founders on bold journeys that would have been impossible just years prior. That is, to return venture capital to its roots.
