Eden Bio raises £1m seed round to advance their machine-learning platform
November 15, 2022 - 3 min read
London, UK, 15 November 2022 – Eden Bio, a UK-based biotech startup using machine learning to increase protein yield, is delighted to announce their seed investment round of £1M. This raise strengthens Eden Bio’s R&D capacity and ability to expand their underlying machine-learning platform over the coming years. By using artificial intelligence to genetically optimise microorganism strains, Eden Bio improves the yield of protein products. Cutting the cost of protein production is essential, and many companies across markets currently struggle with low yield, whether they’re producing industrial enzymes, therapeutics, animal-free foods, custom proteins or media components.
The investment was led by SynBioVen, whose board includes Professors Richard Kitney and Paul Freemont (two of the leading founders of synthetic biology in the UK), Lord David Willetts (Chair of the UK Space Agency, former Minister for Universities and Science, and creator of the Synthetic Biology Leadership Council), and Sir David Harding (Founder and CEO of research-based quantitative investment firm, the Winton Group). Together, they are an elite team of synthetic biology investors, and their links to the SynbiCITE incubator and Imperial College London position Eden Bio at the centre of both world-leading technology and talent.
Following in the round are: Dhyan Capital, whose founder Dr Amar Shah co-founded the artificial intelligence unicorn, Wayve, and who now uses his experience to support other machine-learning companies; Saras Capital, which invests in early-stage companies focused on machine-learning biotech and whose CEO Nadav Rosenberg has many years' experience investing in and mentoring successful companies; and sustainability investor Stefano Bernardi, who supports early stage companies making a positive impact on the world. Additional investment comes from a consortium of angels, including: Dr Noor Shaker (founder of Glamorous AI), Dr Sandra Blewitt, Kevin Mascarenhas and Andy Russell.
Founder and CEO of Eden Bio Dr Chris Reynolds commented, “Eden Bio is on a mission to tackle the low yield and scale up challenges commercial protein production faces. I’m hugely proud of the results my team has already achieved, and the amazing investors joining us are the perfect complement of commercial, synthetic biology and AI expertise for Eden Bio, helping us move even faster.”
Professor Richard Kitney, Director of SynBioVen, Co-founder of the Imperial College Synthetic Biology Cluster, and Co-founder and Co-Director of SynbiCITE, added, “I’m most excited to work with Eden Bio because of how the company is applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to strain optimisation, an essential aspect of synthetic-biology design.”
About Eden Bio
Eden Bio’s machine-learning platform technology enables the precision fermentation industry to overcome the issues of low yield currently preventing exciting protein products from making it to market. Dr Christopher Reynolds, an entrepreneur with a PhD in bioinformatics, a post-doctorate in bioengineering, and over twenty years as director of software house Arc en Ciel, launched Eden Bio in Jan 2022. Prior to that, he co-founded the precision fermentation dairy disruptor, Better Dairy, in 2020, where he served as CTO.
