08 October 2018 – DMC (www.dmcbio.com), an early-stage biotechnology company, announced today that Breakthrough Ventures Portfolio (BEV) has invested in the company’s Series Seed financing round. The round was led by Capricorn Venture Partners and supports the company’s commercial development efforts. This equity financing builds on the company’s previous successful non-dilutive awards to date which exceed $1.5M 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 is deploying 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 that we eat, provide distributed manufacturing of existing products, enable new-to-the world materials that are only accessible using the precision of biology, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and reduce the production of greenhouse gas emissions. 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.
Carmichael Roberts, of Breakthrough Energy Ventures stated “DMC’s synthetic biology platform has the potential to transform traditional product and chemical development by dramatically reducing time-to-market and costs. The technical implications of DMC’s science in the fuels and food sectors coupled with a great management team drew us to the company and we are excited to be part of their journey.”
Rob van der Meij, Investment Manager of the Capricorn Sustainable Chemistry Fund at Capricorn Venture Partners. “Breakthrough Energy Ventures’ participation in DMC strengthens the shareholder base and network. We look forward to working with them and the DMC team.”
“We are excited that BEV appreciates our proven technology and its potential to contribute to overcoming the most pressing difficulties of our time. We look forward to working with them as we grow DMC and tackle these challenges,” said Matt Lipscomb, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder of DMC.
DMC is utilizing the funds from this Series Seed financing to recruit top talent in metabolic engineering and fermentation and to advance its first products to 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 Breakthrough Energy Ventures
Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) is a for-profit, investor-led fund created to accelerate the world’s transition to clean energy. BEV has more than $1 billion in committed capital to fund scientific breakthroughs with the potential to deliver affordable, reliable clean energy. The fund prioritizes investments across the five grand challenges that contribute most to greenhouse gas emissions: electricity, transportation, agriculture, manufacturing and buildings. BEV was created by the Breakthrough Energy Coalition in 2016 and is backed by an investor group that includes many of the world’s top business leaders.
For more information visit: www.b-t.energy/ventures/
About Capricorn Venture Partners
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: https://www.capricorn.be/
