Micro-synthetic biology completed nearly 100 million yuan of angel round financing, and Jingwei Venture Capital led the investment.

On May 30th, the investment community reported that Microelement Synthetic Biotechnology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Microelement Synthesis) was completed.Angel round financing of nearly RMB 100 million., byJingwei Venture Capital leads the investment, Boyuan Capital, Henan Investment Group Huirong Fund, Xianfeng Changqing and Zhejiang Hongshi follow the investment.

This round of financing mainlyIt is used to build research and development laboratories, improve and sort out the underlying technologies, and lay out and develop product pipelines such as active APIs, high value-added natural products and bulk platform compounds.

Founded in 2021, Weiyuan Synthesis is a bio-manufacturing company based on synthetic biotechnology. It is committed to producing various compounds in a low-carbon, energy-saving and sustainable way, which is applied in the fields of medicine, daily chemicals, agriculture, food, feed and materials. Through the biosynthesis of active natural products in all ways, it replaces the inefficient production methods such as traditional planting extraction and animal tissue extraction, reducing the occupation of cultivated land resources and the killing of rare animals; Through the design, directional evolution and expression optimization of key enzymes, the technical route of organic synthesis of APIs was innovated, the production cost of APIs was reduced, and the environmental pollution caused by chemical synthesis process was avoided. Get inspiration from deep-sea creatures, find valuable bioactive molecules, and apply them to daily chemical products such as whitening, moisturizing, sun protection and oxygen free radical repair; Microorganisms were designed and transformed to secrete various plant growth promoters and applied to agricultural production, so as to improve the yield of grain crops and the color and taste of cash crops, and provide technical routes for food security except genetically edited crops.

In addition, the company reserves the underlying technology of multi-carbon source utilization, and replaces glucose with easily available and cheap carbon source to solve the situation of "competing for food with the people" in traditional bio-manufacturing; In the field of bulk material bio-manufacturing, cost is the core problem that restricts its industrialization. Due to the low gross profit, its industrialization faces more challenges. Even if the pilot and pilot tests are completed, there will be many obstacles in scale-up and commercialization, which require a lot of Know-How to solve. Based on the market demand, its own technical advantages and past project experience, Micro-element Synthesis has designed a number of low-cost bio-manufacturing product pipelines of bulk materials for the high-end bulk materials market. The selection of products is based on the judgment of the current and future markets, which avoids the current bio-manufacturing of bulk materials from falling into the dilemma of competing with traditional similar products on the same track.

The core team of micro-element synthesis comes from Institute of Microbiology, China Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Sichuan University, Finland’s national scientific research institutions and traditional biological manufacturers. The team consists of top-level design, product research and development, scale-up production, etc. The team has accumulated more than ten years of experience in all aspects of synthetic biology, and has strong technical feasibility of the project and the ability to predict the research and development cycle, which can minimize the risk of product research and development, reduce unnecessary expenses and accelerate the industrialization process.

For the investment in synthetic biology that has not diminished in recent two years,Researcher Tao Yong, Director of Key Laboratory of Microbial Physiology and Metabolism, Institute of Microbiology, China Academy of Sciences.Said: "Bio-manufacturing is a traditional and mature industry, and synthetic biotechnology has given this traditional industry more possibilities. By redesigning and constructing the life system, compounds that could not be manufactured by traditional means have become a reality. As a material producer, in the fierce market competition of traditional big factories, latecomers must always be aware of what kind of value they have created if they want to get development opportunities. At present, entrepreneurs tell many fascinating stories, which increases the imagination space for the future of synthetic biology. However, entrepreneurship is not a scientific research, and entrepreneurs need to look up at the stars and be down to earth. The early selection of products does not necessarily have a huge market, but it must have high enough technical barriers. With the leading global or global exclusive technology, on the one hand, it can give investors confidence, on the other hand, it can win enough time and space for the development and growth of enterprises. Micro-element synthesis is the kind of team mentioned above. The founder Dr. Liu Bo led his team to develop the world’s leading and industrialized technology. Such entrepreneurship has high certainty. "

Jingwei Venture Capital, as the leading investment institution in this round,Jingwei Partner Dr. Yu ZhiyunSaid: "Jingwei Venture Capital continues to be deeply optimistic about the revolutionary prospects of synthetic biology in various application fields. The micro-element synthesis team has a solid accumulation of technology and industrial transformation in the field of synthetic biology and bio-manufacturing, and has accumulated a lot of knowledge and experience in the original breakthrough and industrial transformation. It is a rare team in the industry with barriers from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 100. We expect the micro-element synthesis team to bring better, more environmentally friendly and more economical products, and start various living cell factories for the benefit of people in China and the world. "

Ma Jinbo, Vice President of Boyuan Capital InvestmentSaid: "The essence of synthetic biology is to make cells work for human beings and produce desired substances. It includes not only the design and assembly of biological elements or life systems that do not exist in nature; It also includes the redesign or construction of existing life systems; Weiyuan’s team has accumulated more than ten years in synthetic biotechnology. The team has long been out of the state of scientific research and publishing articles. In the past years, it has developed various products, carried out considerable technology transfer, and some of them have entered industrialization and achieved success, thus achieving a breakthrough of 1-100. At present, the company starts with difficult products and overcomes them, transforming the metabolic path to subvert the traditional extraction method, so as to be reused in other broader and higher ceiling fields. "

Dr. Ge Dangqiao, Deputy General Manager of Huirong Fund of Henan Investment GroupSaid: "Synthetic biotechnology will reshape human material civilization, and synthetic biotechnology-related industries are on the eve of the outbreak. Huirong Fund pays close attention to the team with superior innovation ability in the underlying general technology of synthetic biology. The micro-element synthesis team is well-known, has a deep understanding of the metabolic path of chassis cells, has the ability to build a rich chassis cell bank, and has built a whole process team from strain transformation to production process transformation. The founder Dr. Liu Bo has a clear understanding and vision of the whole process from scientific research to industrial production. To some extent, in the next few years, the competition of synthetic biological innovation enterprises will extend from the laboratory to the large-scale production capacity landing. Huirong Fund will combine the relevant production capacity foundation and production experience of Henan Investment Group in the industrial field to assist the micro-element synthesis to quickly complete the industrialization landing work. We hope that micro-element synthesis can create great value for the benefit of mankind through synthetic biology technology. "

Xianfeng Changqing Investor Feng YunqiSaid: "Synthetic biology, as a newly rapidly developing interdisciplinary, has shown more and more extensive application potential in biomedicine, energy, new materials and other fields. It greatly improves the ability of microbial cell factory to produce chemicals, effectively replaces the traditional process, significantly reduces pollution and energy consumption. Weiyuan team comes from Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Whampoa Military Academy in the field of synthetic biology. It is a rare team in the industry with the ability of scientific research, product selection and transformation. The rich experience of Weiyuan team in the past will continue to be extended in the future. I believe Weiyuan can break through and become a leader in the field. "