09 January 2018 – DMC (www.dmcbio.com), an early-stage biotechnology company, announced today that is has raised a first equity financing led by Capricorn Venture Partners. The company also announced the addition to its Board of Directors of Rob van der Meij, Investment Manager of the Capricorn Sustainable Chemistry Fund. This funding builds on the company’s successful nondilutive awards to date which exceed $1.2M from the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, and the US Department of Agriculture.
DMC makes bio-based products using enhanced microbial fermentation. Modification of the programming language for microbes to enhance productivity has historically been complicated, slow, and costly. DMC has developed technology to reduce biological complexity and enhance the speed of development, creating a low cost, fermentation-based manufacturing platform that has the capability to produce a broad diversity of products. Increased deployment of bio-based products can improve the nutrition of the foods, provide distributed manufacturing of existing products, enable new-to-the world materials that are only accessible using the precision of biology, and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. DMC is building a capital-efficient, multi-product company using patent-pending technology that overcomes key barriers that have historically impeded efforts in this sector.
“Everyone acknowledges that biology is inherently complex, and up until now, that complexity has meant long and costly development cycles. We reduce biological complexity, enabling us to bring products into the market place at unprecedented speed and cost. We are excited that Capricorn appreciates the potential of our proven technology and look forward to working with them in the commercialization of our first products,” said Matt Lipscomb, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder of DMC.
Rob van der Meij, Investment Manager at Capricorn Venture Partners (the manager of the Capricorn Sustainable Chemistry Fund), agrees. “We are investing in DMC because their revolutionary approach and technology are differentiated in the sector. Their founding team are seasoned veterans in the space and they are well-positioned for strong growth. We look forward to working with the DMC team to support the company’s commercial efforts across multiple global markets.”
With this funding, DMC plans to recruit top talent in metabolic engineering and fermentation and advance its first products to pilot scale.
About DMC
DMC is unleashing the manufacturing power of biology. DMC develops and commercializes bio-based products for multiple product markets, including specialty chemicals, flavors, fragrances, nutraceuticals, and APIs. For more information, visit: www.dmcbio.com
About Capricorn
Capricorn Venture Partners, an independent Leuven (Belgium) based manager of venture capital and equity funds, invests in innovative companies with technology as a competitive advantage. It operates under an AIFM license granted by the FSMA (the Financial Services and Markets Authority in Belgium). For more information, visit: http://www.capricorn.be/
