Tianwu Tech Secures Tens of Millions in Pre-A Funding to Accelerate Commercialization of General AI Model for Protein Engineering

VCBeat learned at the first time,Matwings Technology Completes Pre-A Round Financing of Tens of Millions of Yuan, Led by金沙江联合资本, with Participation from 3E Bioventures, 晓池资本, and 四川交研资本; Funds Raised Will Mainly Be Used to Accelerate the Industry Application of General Large Models in Protein Engineering and Promote Industrial Upgrading.

Matwings Technology was founded by Professor Liang Hong, a specially appointed professor at the Institute of Natural Sciences & School of Physics and Astronomy & School of Pharmacy at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The company is committed to using innovative algorithms to build general artificial intelligence large models. By utilizing the "dry lab" of general large models and efficient "wet lab" in a closed-loop iterative collaboration, it achieves precise targeted design for any protein product. This technology can be widely applied in fields such as innovative drugs, in vitro diagnostics, nutrition and health, food and beverages, beauty and skincare, cleaning and textiles, bioenergy, bio-agriculture, and environmental engineering.

The core team of Matwings Technology covers talents in various fields such as biophysics, pharmacy, artificial intelligence, enzyme engineering, and metabolic engineering. Several leaders have extensive experience working in multinational pharmaceutical corporations (MNCs) and possess rich management and algorithm development expertise.

Since its establishment, Matwings Technology has successfully delivered more than ten protein design projects to leading customers in the biopharmaceutical, synthetic biology, and enzyme preparation industries by leveraging its self-developed large AI protein design model—AccelProtein™. With its outstanding product delivery capabilities, the company has gained high recognition in the industry. Currently, Matwings Technology has established close long-term strategic partnerships with numerous upstream and downstream enterprises and completed two rounds of financing consecutively in 2022 and 2023.

Protein design has always been an extremely challenging task: Traditional rational design methods are limited by human understanding of the three-dimensional structure and function of proteins when modifying them, making it difficult to fully grasp their complexity and diversity, thus resulting in a limited scope of modification; although high-throughput screening technology can handle a large number of samples, it is time-consuming, costly, and difficult to generalize due to protein diversity. In addition, strict patent protection increases the difficulty and risk of new protein product development.

In today's era of rapid advancements in AI and protein engineering, Matwings Technology has independently developed an innovative large AI model for protein design—AccelProtein™. This model has completely transformed the approach to protein design—AccelProtein™ transcends the three-dimensional structure of proteins, directly enabling precise and efficient prediction from sequence to function.

It is reported that AccelProtein™, a large-scale model, adopts an advanced Transformer architecture and masked language model. Trained on a complex dataset of 780 million protein sequences from organisms across various environments, the model has mastered the intricate semantic relationships between protein sequences and their functions. It breaks through the limitations of three-dimensional structures to achieve "sequence-to-function" mapping and possesses genuine zero-shot prediction capabilities.

Using "AccelProtein™ Large Model Automatic Design + Minimal Experimental Validation" can achieve the design of all types of protein sequences. Multiple protein design cases have demonstrated that this technology not only optimizes key metrics such as protein stability, activity, and affinity to reach or even surpass world-leading levels but also significantly reduces the optimization time for protein properties from the traditional 2-5 years to just 2-6 months.

Matwings Technology, using its self-developed AI protein design large model AccelProtein™, has solved core issues in traditional "expert experience & extensive trial and error" paradigms, such as long protein design times, high costs, low positive rates, and the difficulty of multi-objective optimization. It has played a significant role in enhancing customer product performance, shortening R&D cycles, reducing production costs, and establishing a high-barrier patent layout.

This is not only a major technological leap forward but also a profound impact on the entire field of biological science. It marks that, driven by AI technology, protein engineering is transitioning from the traditional bioengineering era to the intelligent bioengineering era, bringing more precise biological system design to humanity.

"At a time when the biopharmaceutical investment sector is generally in a winter period, the fact that Matwings Technology has gained the favor of capital fully demonstrates the confidence of top-tier investment institutions in the future development prospects of Matwings Technology's self-developed AI protein design large model."Professor Liang Hong, Founder and Chief Scientist of Matwings TechnologySuch was the discussion.

He emphasized that after the completion of a new round of financing, Matwings Technology will continue to innovate and improve its technology, implementing new quality productive forces in practical work and moving towards "innovation": "As an important driving force in the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, Matwings' AI protein design large model AccelProtein™ is continuously injecting new momentum into every corner of social development. In the future, we will also continue to promote technological progress and contribute to the prosperity and development of human society."

Ms. Wang Xiaoyan, Managing Partner of Jinsha River United Capital Biomedical Fund"As the lead investor of Matwings Technology, we have great confidence in this team. Not only are they technologically advanced, but their market performance has also been outstanding, especially with their self-developed large AI protein design model, which represents a revolutionary breakthrough for industries such as biomedicine. We are optimistic about Matwings Technology's strong scientific research capabilities and clear commercial path, and believe that they will continue to deeply cultivate the field of AI protein design, drive industry innovation, and create more value for partners and customers."

Dr. Qianye Liu, Partner of 3E Bioventures"In an era where large language models are flourishing and AI-empowered pharmaceutical research and development companies are emerging one after another, Matwings Technology has trained a large model using the language of proteins in nature — amino acid sequences — enabling rapid retrieval of high-quality multi-point mutants in high-dimensional phase space, significantly improving the efficiency of protein engineering. Matwings Technology has made breakthrough progress through cooperation with multiple pharmaceutical and biotech companies. We look forward to such AI-powered protein design technology empowering more biotech companies."

Mr. Xu Junhao, Investment Director of Xiaochi CapitalMatwings Technology, with its strong technical capabilities, combines AI and synthetic biology—two popular and cutting-edge technologies—earning recognition from several leading clients in the industry. Relying on its advanced large-scale AI protein design model and extensive experimental expertise, the company significantly enhances the R&D and technological iteration efficiency of its partner enterprises through a "dry-wet lab" integrated approach. Xiaochi Capital also looks forward to Matwings Technology injecting more innovative productivity into the biopharmaceutical and biomanufacturing industries.

Mr. Yang Guang, Founding Partner of Yaotu CapitalExpressed: "The Matwings Technology team possesses strong algorithm, technology, and iteration capabilities. Relying on high-quality protein data, they have independently developed a general large model, achieving a technological breakthrough in the field of protein design. They have already gained recognition from dozens of well-known enterprises in the industry. Glory Capital has high expectations for the company's development and looks forward to Matwings Technology becoming a global leader in the AI protein design field."

Mr. Fang Zhenghao, Managing Partner of Xiaomiao LangchengStated: "As an angel investor of Matwings Technology, I am deeply honored to witness Matwings rapidly grow into a leading player in China's AI protein design service sector. Since its establishment, Matwings Technology has achieved remarkable success in protein design through its innovative AI large model technology, bringing revolutionary changes to multiple industries such as pharmaceuticals, bioengineering, and manufacturing. We sincerely congratulate Matwings Technology on successfully securing a new round of financing during this capital winter, believing that this will inject even stronger momentum into the company’s development. May Matwings Technology continue to focus on technological innovation, constantly push boundaries, and make greater contributions to advancing the biomanufacturing industry and human health. Matwings soars high—its future is promising!"