MicroCyto Biosciences Completes Nearly RMB 100 Million Angel Funding Round Led by Matrix Partners China

Recently, VCBeat learned that MicroCyto Biotechnology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “MicroCyto”) announced the completion of its angel financing round of nearly RMB 100 million. The round was led by Matrix Partners China, with participation from Boyuan Capital, Henan Investment Group’s Huirong Fund, K2VC, and Zhejiang Hongshi.

This round of financing will be primarily used to establish R&D laboratories, refine and systematize foundational technologies, and strategically lay out and develop product pipelines including active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), high-value-added natural products, and bulk platform compounds.

Regarding the sustained investment enthusiasm for synthetic biology over the past two years, Dr. Tao Yong, Director of the Key Laboratory of Microbial Physiology and Metabolism at the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, stated: “Biomanufacturing is a relatively traditional and mature industry. Synthetic biology technologies have endowed this traditional sector with greater possibilities by redesigning and reconstructing living systems, thereby making it feasible to produce compounds that were previously unattainable through conventional methods. As manufacturers of material products, latecomers seeking development opportunities amidst fierce competition from established industry giants must remain clear-headed about the value they create. While current entrepreneurs have told many compelling stories that greatly expand the imaginative horizon for the future of synthetic biology, entrepreneurship is not scientific research. Entrepreneurs need not only to aim high but also to stay grounded. Early-stage product selection does not necessarily require a massive market, but it must feature sufficiently high technical barriers. Possessing technology that is either globally leading or exclusively available worldwide can not only bolster investor confidence but also secure ample time and space for the company’s growth and expansion. MicroCyto exemplifies such a team. Led by its founder, Dr. Liu Bo, the team is developing globally leading technologies with industrialization potential, making this venture highly certain in its prospects.””

As the lead investor in this round, Dr. Yu Zhiyun, Partner at Matrix Partners China, stated: “Matrix Partners China remains deeply optimistic about the revolutionary prospects of synthetic biology across various application fields. The MicroCyto team has built substantial technical expertise and industrial translation capabilities in synthetic biology-based biomanufacturing. They have accumulated extensive insights and experience in both foundational original breakthroughs and industrial-scale implementation, making them a rare team in the industry with competitive moats spanning from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 100. We look forward to MicroCyto delivering higher-quality, more environmentally friendly, and cost-effective products by harnessing living cell factories, thereby benefiting people in China and around the world.”

Ma Jinbo, Vice President of Investment at Boyuan Capital, stated, “The essence of synthetic biology is to harness cells to work for humans and produce desired substances. This encompasses both the design and assembly of biological components or living systems that do not exist in nature, as well as the redesign or reconstruction of existing living systems. MicroCyto’s team has accumulated over a decade of expertise in synthetic biology technology. The team has long moved beyond the stage of academic research and publication; over the past several years, it has developed various products, completed numerous technology transfers, and successfully commercialized some of them, thereby achieving a breakthrough from 1 to 100. The company currently focuses on tackling high-difficulty products first, revolutionizing traditional extraction methods by engineering metabolic pathways, with the aim of subsequently applying this capability to broader fields with higher growth ceilings.””

Dr. Ge Dangqiao, Deputy General Manager of Huirong Fund under Henan Investment Group, stated, “Synthetic biology technology will reshape human material civilization, and industries related to synthetic biotechnology are on the eve of an explosive growth phase. Huirong Fund closely focuses on teams with exceptional innovation capabilities in foundational general-purpose synthetic biology technologies. The MicroCyto team boasts prestigious academic origins, possesses a deep understanding of chassis cell metabolic pathways, and has the capacity to build a rich library of chassis cells. It has established a full-process team covering everything from strain engineering to production process optimization. Dr. Liu Bo, the founder, has a clear understanding and vision of the entire journey from scientific research to industrial-scale production. To some extent, competition among synthetic biology innovators in the coming years will extend from the laboratory to the implementation of scalable production capacity. Leveraging Henan Investment Group’s industrial production capacity and experience, Huirong Fund will assist MicroCyto in rapidly achieving industrial commercialization. We expect MicroCyto to create substantial value for humanity through synthetic biology technology.””

Feng Yunqi, an investor at Xianfeng Changqing, stated, “As a rapidly emerging interdisciplinary field, synthetic biology has demonstrated increasingly broad application potential in areas such as biopharmaceuticals, energy, and new materials. It significantly enhances the capacity of microbial cell factories to produce chemicals, effectively replacing traditional processes, substantially reducing pollution, and markedly lowering energy consumption. The MicroCyto team hails from the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences—widely regarded as the ‘Whampoa Military Academy’ of synthetic biology—and is one of the few teams in the industry that possesses integrated capabilities in scientific research, product selection, and commercial translation. We believe that MicroCyto will build upon its rich past experience to achieve breakthroughs and emerge as a leader in the field.””

MicroCyto, established in 2021, is a biomanufacturing company founded on synthetic biology technologies. It is dedicated to producing various compounds through low-carbon, energy-efficient, and sustainable methods for applications in pharmaceuticals, daily chemicals, agriculture, food, animal feed, and materials. By achieving complete biosynthetic pathways for bioactive natural products, MicroCyto replaces inefficient traditional production methods such as plant cultivation and extraction or animal tissue extraction, thereby reducing arable land usage and preventing the poaching of endangered animals. Through enzyme design, directed evolution, and expression optimization, the company revolutionizes organic synthesis routes for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), lowering production costs while avoiding environmental pollution associated with chemical synthesis processes. Drawing inspiration from deep-sea organisms, MicroCyto identifies valuable bioactive molecules for use in daily chemical products, including those for skin whitening, moisturizing, sun protection, and oxygen free radical repair. Additionally, by designing and engineering microorganisms to secrete various plant growth promoters, the company supports agricultural production to enhance the yield of food crops and improve the color and taste of cash crops, providing a technical alternative to genetically edited crops for ensuring food security.

Furthermore, the company has established foundational technologies for multi-carbon source utilization, employing readily available and inexpensive carbon sources to replace glucose. This approach addresses the issue of traditional biomanufacturing competing with human food supplies for grain resources. In the field of bulk material biomanufacturing, cost is the core constraint on industrialization. Due to low gross margins, this sector faces greater challenges; even after successfully completing laboratory-scale and pilot-scale trials, numerous obstacles often arise during scale-up and commercialization, requiring substantial know-how to overcome. Leveraging market demand, its technological advantages, and prior project experience, MicroCyto has designed multiple product pipelines for the low-cost biomanufacturing of bulk materials, targeting the high-end bulk materials market. Its product selection is based on an analysis of current and future market trends, thereby avoiding the predicament of engaging in pure cost competition with similar traditional products in the same market segment.

The core team of MicroCyto comprises experts from the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Tsinghua University; Sichuan University; Finnish national research institutions; and leading traditional biomanufacturing companies. The team covers all key stages, including top-level design, product R&D, and scale-up production. With over a decade of accumulated experience across various segments of synthetic biology, the team possesses strong capabilities in assessing technical feasibility and forecasting R&D timelines. This expertise minimizes product development risks, reduces unnecessary expenditures, and accelerates industrialization.