Allozymes, a pioneering biotech startup, has just closed a remarkable $15 million Series A funding round, propelling its transformative enzyme screening technology into the spotlight. This investment marks a significant milestone for the company, positioning it to evolve from a valuable service provider to a global leader in bio-based chemical innovation.
Founded in 2021 by CEO Peyman Salehian, Allozymes has experienced exponential growth since its humble beginnings with less than five staff members and a modest lab space of just a thousand square feet. Fast forward to the present day, the company boasts a team of 32 experts spanning across the United States, Europe, and Singapore, with a lab space expanded fifteenfold to accommodate its groundbreaking research.
At the core of Allozymes’ success lies its ingenious enzyme-screening technique, which revolutionizes the discovery and optimization of enzymes crucial for various biological processes. Traditionally, the exploration of enzyme variants has been laborious and time-consuming, limited by the sheer complexity of molecular permutations. However, Allozymes’ innovative method allows for the rapid testing of millions of enzyme variants per day, leveraging microfluidics technology akin to a high-speed conveyor belt with automated sorting capabilities.
While the company’s focus primarily revolves around enzyme optimization as a service through its SingZyme platform, plans for expansion are already underway. Allozymes aims to introduce MultiZyme, a comprehensive solution for discovering and refining multiple enzymes tailored to specific industrial needs.
Crucially, Allozymes’ vast repository of enzymatic data, amassed through its services, represents a significant intellectual property asset. With billions of data points at their disposal, the company aspires to create the most extensive enzyme data library globally, driving innovation and fostering collaborations across the biotech landscape.
The $15 million A round includes new investors Seventure Partners, NUS Technology Holdings, Thia Ventures and ID Capital, with repeat investment from Xora Innovation, SOSV, Entrepreneur First and Transpose Platform.
Allozymes’ CEO explains that “You can give the structure to AlphaFold and it will tell you how it folds, but it can’t tell you what will happen if it binds with another chemical,” and adds that “There’s no machine learning model in the world that can tell you exactly what to do, because the data we have is so little, and so fragmented; we’re talking 300 samples a day for 20 years,” but claims that Allozymes’ machines can do this work within a day.
