Huili Bio Secures Nearly RMB 300 Million Series A Funding to Advance Next-Gen Computational Enzyme Design Platform in Synthetic Biology

VCBeat has learned that HuiLi Bio, a next-generation synthetic biology enzyme computational design platform, recently announced the completion of its nearly RMB 300 million Series A financing round. The round was co-led by Legend Capital and BioTrack Capital, with participation from Cenova Capital, Yun Qi Partners, and Zwc Ventures. Taihe Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor. The proceeds will be used to accelerate the construction and operation of large-scale production facilities, advance the research and development of new product pipelines, and expand the talent team.

HuiLi Bio was founded in 2018, dedicated to the computational design of core enzymatic components for synthetic biological reactions. With a continuous stream of cutting-edge R&D achievements, it is one of the few biomanufacturing companies possessing comprehensive capabilities in core technologies, large-scale production, and commercialization closed loops. The company has successfully implemented solutions across multiple sectors, including pharmaceutical intermediates, animal health, and food. HuiLi Bio operates an R&D center in Tianjin and a production base in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, where expansion projects for flexible production lines are currently underway.

As an industry at the forefront of the new technological revolution, synthetic biology combines economic viability with substantial value. According to McKinsey, 70% of products currently manufactured through chemical methods could be produced via biological processes in the future. As the core component determining biosynthetic efficiency, enzyme engineering will significantly expand the scope of feasible reactions. Huili Bio’s core technology platform—the Enzyme Computational Design Platform—is the first in China to enable comprehensive, all-scenario enzyme design. It conducts in-depth analysis and mining of the “sequence-structure-function” relationships of enzymes, going beyond traditional directed evolution techniques. By leveraging computational design, the company has substantially optimized screening efficiency and achieved highly efficient enzyme functional modification, thereby driving transformative progress in green biomanufacturing. Currently, the company has successfully translated products from this platform into the pharmaceutical sector, efficiently completing the entire process from laboratory development and industrial-scale production to commercialization. Compared with traditional chemical methods, this approach reduces costs by nearly 30% and increases yields by nearly 70%. The company has also laid out a pipeline of more than ten innovative products across multiple fields.

Huilin Biotech’s core team comprises graduates from prestigious domestic and international institutions, including the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and East China University of Science and Technology. With interdisciplinary backgrounds, team members possess decades of accumulated expertise in synthetic biology research and industrialization, demonstrating extensive experience across fundamental technologies, product portfolio selection, and scaled-up manufacturing. The company’s technical team is dedicated to computational design, enzyme engineering, and pathway design, thereby establishing a series of biosynthetic routes for various chemicals. Multiple technologies have been successfully commercialized, including enzymatic assembly of peptide drugs, biosynthesis of β-amino acids, and sequential fermentation for nitrogen-containing heterocyclic pharmaceutical intermediates. Mr. Guo Hongming, Chairman of the Company, is an industry veteran with 30 years of experience who has spearheaded the transition from traditional biomanufacturing to the era of synthetic biology. He possesses profound insights into the scaled production and commercial implementation of technologies, having previously achieved the commercialization of several products that were first-of-their-kind in China and world-leading.

In recent years, the synthetic biology sector has become increasingly broad. Professor Wu Bian, an expert in the field, stated, “The scope of synthetic biology technologies holds infinite possibilities, expanding the horizons for the future development of human society. The organic integration of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology has further accelerated the arrival of this era. However, on a practical level, entrepreneurs and practitioners must still focus on developing market-oriented products, position their technologies toward translational applications, clarify their strategic thinking, and remain grounded.”

For this financing round,Ji Haiquan, Executive Director of Legend CapitalLegend Capital stated: “The synthetic biomaterials market offers vast opportunities and represents a key sector in the drive toward green, low-carbon development. As core components of synthetic biology, enzymes—through their design and engineering—will enable more traditional biotechnology industries to adopt low-cost, sustainable, and green production methods. Legend Capital has long focused on investments in the ‘IT+’ sector, and Huili Biology stands as a prime example of the integration of information technology and biotechnology (IT+BT). The company’s team combines industrial and research expertise, possessing capabilities in differentiated product selection and multi-pipeline expansion. Leveraging its industry-leading computational enzyme design technology, Huili Biology has rapidly achieved scaled production of high-value-added products such as pharmaceutical intermediates through its whole-industry-chain layout, earning strong recognition from leading industry clients. Legend Capital is delighted to partner with the company to contribute to China’s intelligent biological manufacturing.”

Ma Jinbo, Vice President of Investment at BioTrack CapitalIt stated: “The ESG philosophy has become a global consensus, with low-carbon, environmental protection, green initiatives, and sustainable development emerging as the primary directions for social progress. These areas also constitute the key focus and overall strategic layout of BioTrack Capital. Adhering to the philosophy of ‘building barriers through disruptive technologies, relying on core scientific and technical talent, and aiming for high value-added applications driven by sustainable development,’ BioTrack Capital has invested in multiple high-quality companies in the field of synthetic biology. Among them, we consider Huili Biotech to be one of the few companies that have already achieved complete industrialization from design to production across multiple product varieties. Leveraging its R&D team’s profound understanding of biocatalysis-related element mining, mechanism elucidation, enzyme engineering, and synthetic design, combined with its proprietary full-scenario computational enzyme engineering design platform, and supported by industry veterans with over 30 years of practical experience in the biological and chemical industries, Huili Biotech enjoys significant advantages and distinctive features in product selection and cost control. We believe that Huili Biotech will become a key leader in the process of achieving low-carbon transformation and sustainable development within China’s chemical industry.”

Shen Xiaoyin, Managing Director of Cenova Capitalstated: “With the maturation of foundational technologies such as sequencing, gene editing, and protein structure prediction, we believe that the application of synthetic biology in the field of biomanufacturing represents a long-term transformative trend globally. Meanwhile, China’s more mature large-scale fermentation industry, compared to those in Europe and the United States, provides a fertile ground for the commercialization of synthetic biology technologies. We are optimistic about Huili’s computational enzyme engineering design platform, which significantly enhances R&D efficiency, as well as the team’s decades of accumulated experience in scaling up production processes. We are confident that the company will drive multi-faceted innovations in traditional production methods across the industry.”

Yun Qi Partners Managing Director Feng Yaostated: “Synthetic biology is a key sector in the development of the green economy and will become an industry driving the next technological revolution. We are highly optimistic about Huili’s general computational capabilities for rational enzyme design, which position it as a leading company in the synthetic biology field with a multi-pipeline product portfolio. On one hand, the team’s foundational capabilities in enzyme protein design are at a leading level domestically and even internationally; on the other hand, its technologies have been validated across multiple pipelines, achieving mass production and scaled commercial sales. We look forward to collaborating with the Huili team to achieve more cutting-edge advances in synthetic biology and facilitate the intelligent upgrading of the industrial chain.”

Xu Wei, Partner at Zwc VenturesZwc Ventures stated: “We have long been bullish on the opportunities in the synthetic biology industry, with enzymes being a critical component of synthetic biology applications. The Huili team represents a rare and excellent combination of ‘technology + industry’ expertise within the sector. The team possesses advanced enzyme engineering capabilities as well as decades of practical experience in the bio-chemical industry. Huili’s enzyme engineering computational platform can significantly enhance the efficiency of identifying target enzymes, thereby accelerating the commercialization of its pipeline. Huili’s pipeline selection features a unique and clear positioning, offering distinct competitive advantages. We look forward to the team’s continued growth and creation of further surprises following the completion of this financing round.”

Sun Si, Director at Taihe Capitalstated: “R&D efficiency is the most critical factor for companies in the field to establish a competitive advantage. The Huili Biotech team has years of successful experience in industrial commercialization, achieving a closed-loop ‘R&D–production–manufacturing’ system for several products. Through this round of financing, the company will further expand its leading edge in R&D efficiency and mass production capabilities, facilitating the commercialization and application of new products and entry into new fields. We are delighted to become the company’s long-term strategic partner and to continue supporting its growth!”