Culture Biosciences Raises $80M Series B to Tackle Demand for Large-Scale Biomanufacturing

• Culture is closing the gap in manufacturing capacity with its large-scale cloud bioreactors to support a surge in bio-based products

October 14, 2021 03:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Culture Biosciences, a company enabling biotech firms to develop and scale manufacturing processes in the cloud, announced a Series B financing of $80 million led by Northpond Ventures. Synthesis Capital also participated in the round. Existing investors Cultivian Sandbox Ventures, The Production Board, Craft Ventures, E14 Fund, Box Group, Verily Life Sciences, and Section 32 also contributed. Andrew Lee, Ph.D., of Northpond Ventures will join Culture’s Board of Directors.

Recently there’s been an explosion in the number of new companies in synthetic biology and biopharmaceuticals, and large multinational corporations are also increasingly participating in this space," said Will Patrick, CEO and co-founder, Culture Biosciences. “Although demand for biomanufactured products—from food to clothing to vaccines—is surging, there's a huge gap in the infrastructure required to produce these bioproducts at commercial scale.”

Importantly, there currently isn’t enough manufacturing capacity in the world to support this new wave of synthetic biology products. Today’s global capacity falls 100x short of what would be needed to meet the demand for fermentation-based animal protein in 2030. This major gap in large-scale capacity is what Culture is aiming to tackle for its clients looking to scale their processes up to manufacturing, starting with pilot-scale bioreactors.

Since announcing a $15 million Series A in 2020, Culture has grown 3x year-over-year and invested in scaling out its facilities, offerings, and team. Key achievements include:

• Accelerating bioprocess development for 30+ of the world’s leading biotech companies
• Streamlining data analysis and cross-team collaboration for clients by launching Culture’s Cloud Console, a one-stop web app for experiment data and insights
• Launching new capabilities beyond fermentation, such as mammalian cell culture and analytical chemistry
• More than doubling full-time employee count in the past year

To date, Culture has raised over $100 million. This new round of funding will be used to build and scale 5L and 250L cloud bioreactors, supporting customer demand for larger quantities of material to use for testing and regulatory approval. In a survey conducted by the company in 2020, participating biopharma and synthetic biology companies indicated that, out of all potential new product offerings, pilot scale bioreactors would be the most beneficial to their work. Now, Culture’s clients can develop, optimize, and scale their bioproducts virtually. Many customers are already signing up to use the larger tanks when they become available.

For more information, please see the full press release on Business Wire.