Lithuanian biotech company Biomatter, which develops computational technology for designing custom enzymes, has raised $18 million in an oversubscribed Series A funding round led by Astanor, with participation from existing investors UVC Partners, Inventure and Metaplanet.
- launched in 2018 by Laurynas Karpus, Vykintas Jauniškis, Irmantas Rokaitis, Donatas Repečka and Rolandas Meškys, Biomatter develops computational models that enable companies to design enzymes tailored to specific chemical reactions and industrial applications.
- Its technology combines computational modelling with laboratory testing to create enzymes with properties suited to customers' requirements.
- Enzymes are widely used in pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, agriculture and industrial biotechnology. However, conventional development can take months or even years, particularly when existing natural enzymes are unsuitable for a specific application.
- Biomatter aims to shorten this process to weeks through its computational platform and proprietary dataset of experimentally tested enzymes.
- The company has worked with enterprise customers across Europe, the United States and Japan, including AstraZeneca, BASF, Sanofi and Tereos. It has also collaborated with Thermo Fisher Scientific on an enzyme designed to improve stability in molecular biology and mRNA research applications.
Details of the deal
- With the fresh capital, Biomatter plans to establish a 2,000-square-metre enzyme design and testing facility in Vilnius, expected to open in 2027. The facility will bring more development and testing activities in-house, with the aim of reducing enzyme development timelines from weeks to days.
- The company will also expand its commercial team and US presence while continuing to develop its computational platform and proprietary enzyme dataset.
