Codon Secures Tens of Millions in Pre-A Funding to Advance DNA Data Storage Technology

Focusing on the Development of DNA Data Storage Technology"Codon"The company has recently completed a Pre-A financing round worth tens of millions of yuan. This round was jointly led by Kaitai Capital and Panlin Capital, with participation from Wangdao Capital and Zhongguancun Innovation Street Capital. Previously, it received angel investment from MiraclePlus.

Codon was founded in 2021, and isChina's First Startup Focused on the Development of DNA Data Storage Technology. The company is headquartered in Hangzhou, with R&D centers located at the Haichuang Base on the banks of the Qiantang River in Hangzhou and in the core area of Zhangjiang High-Tech Park in Shanghai. The founding team hails from MIT, bringing years of accumulated knowledge and technical expertise in synthetic biology, semiconductor materials and devices, data science, and artificial intelligence.

Zhang Lushuai, Founder of CodonDr. Zhang Lushuai completed his postdoctoral training under Professor Ron Weiss, a pioneer in synthetic biology and Director of the MIT Center for Synthetic Biology. Professor Weiss, who was mentored by Tom Knight (Founder of Ginkgo Bioworks) and Frances Arnold (2018 Nobel Laureate and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology under the Biden administration), has made seminal contributions to the field of synthetic biology. In Professor Weiss’s laboratory, Dr. Zhang led a DARPA-funded project focused on the design of genetic circuits within human cells. Previously, he earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he developed fabric-based flexible semiconductor materials and electronic devices. He has published more than 20 high-impact peer-reviewed papers and holds two U.S. patents. His core technologies have been successfully commercialized by Soliyarn for use in its smart textile product lines.

Leveraging its in-depth understanding of synthetic biology and data storage, the Codon teamExploring the Intersection of Information Technology and Synthetic Biology’s Foundational Logic, pioneered the development of a novel DNA data storage technology. By employing proprietary encoding algorithms, it converts various types of data—including text, images, and audio—into DNA sequences for storage and retrieval.

In the era of big data, data volumes are measured in petabytes (PB) and growing exponentially. Challenges such as high data attrition rates and inefficient management are becoming increasingly severe, with particularly strong demand for storing “cold data”—data that is infrequently accessed but constitutes a significant proportion of total data. However, existing data storage technologies suffer from shortcomings such as short retention periods, limited storage capacity, and prohibitively high costs. Achieving “cost reduction while expanding capacity” will be key to effectively addressing these issues and fostering robust development in the field of data storage, as well as meeting and driving the continuous growth in data storage demand.

Due toDNA boasts prominent advantages such as high storage density and high stability., featuring long-term preservation and low maintenance costs, directly addressing the pain points of existing data storage. The founding team of Codon has pioneered disruptive innovations in data writing by leveraging synthetic biology methods, developing novel DNA storage technology and taking the lead in applying it to cold data storage, with the aim of gradually breaking through and resolving numerous challenges in the current data storage landscape.

In fact, DNA data storage technology remains a “new species.” For over half a century, this innovative technology progressed only from theoretical foundations to proof-of-concept. In recent years, thanks to rapid advances in DNA synthesis and sequencing, DNA data storage has swiftly advanced to the commercialization stage. This constitutes the “favorable timing and conditions” that have enabled the Codon team to innovatively develop DNA storage technology. The feasibility of the Codon team’s DNA storage technology has been preliminarily validated, and the team is now focusing on developing end-to-end automated DNA storage devices.

Kaitai Capital Investment TeamIt is widely believed that the cross-disciplinary integration of biotechnology and information technology (BT+IT) has been a breakthrough direction in scientific and technological R&D over the past decade, as well as a hot investment focus pursued by capital in the last two to three years. However, the vast majority of current BT-IT integrations are built with IT as the logical foundation and BT as the application and presentation layer. Examples include the currently highly popular AI-driven drug discovery, computational molecular structure simulation, high-throughput programmable laboratories, and various omics technologies, among others. In contrast, approaches that use BT as the underlying architecture to feed back into IT applications are extremely rare. Biological computing is one such example, while DNA data storage appears to be a direction closer to practical application and commercialization.

Panlin Capital Investment TeamWe believe that DNA data storage technology is a process that artificially synthesizes data—such as text, images, and audio—into DNA as a storage medium. This field encompasses multiple disciplines, including synthetic biology, data intelligence, IT technologies, and chemical materials, with rapid breakthroughs occurring across its various technical branches. In particular, optimizations at the intersection of “data storage + synthetic biology” have enabled key technological hurdles in DNA data storage to be overcome. We are currently on the eve of the commercialization of DNA data storage, making now an opportune time for investment.

Zhang Lushuai, Founder and CEO of Codonstated: “As the carrier of genetic information for life, DNA has undergone natural selection. It is now time for us to harness it for massive data storage in the era of data explosion. DNA data storage is a typical interdisciplinary challenge that requires founding teams to establish a presence across various nodes of the industry chain while systematically addressing a range of issues from diverse disciplinary perspectives, thereby identifying unique solutions.”

Li Yuhui, Founding Managing Partner of Panlin Capital“It is evident that data storage demands are experiencing explosive growth. Leveraging their interdisciplinary expertise and deep understanding of both data storage and synthetic biology, the Codon team has successfully developed a novel storage technology that addresses critical pain points in data storage. This innovation serves as a powerful complement to, and may even replace, existing storage technologies, representing the most promising new approach for cold data storage. We are delighted that Panlin Capital has been able to support such a team. Furthermore, DNA storage technology is an innovative application built upon the convergence of biotechnology and data intelligence. Identifying and comprehending projects of this nature is a core strength of venture capital firms like Panlin Capital, which focuses on the intersection of biotechnology and data intelligence applications. We are highly optimistic about Codon’s future growth potential.”

Zhao Zhanxiang, Special Technical Advisor to Codon and Partner & Chief Technology Officer at Yunxiu Capital“The world is rapidly entering a data-centric era, where mainstream storage media such as hard disk drives (HDDs) and flash memory struggle to meet the demands of massive data storage. As a bio-based storage medium, DNA naturally offers advantages in low cost and low energy consumption. Codon possesses core technologies in DNA storage and synthetic biology. By building an industrial ecosystem for DNA storage, it has the potential to usher in a new era of storage and become a world-class company.”