Hi ,

The global demand for chemicals and materials is expected to rise significantly in the coming years. While this can drive significant economic growth, it also presents a significant challenge for the environment. Traditional methods of production are often energy-intensive and release harmful emissions into the atmosphere. However,  emerging synbio technologies have the potential to address these challenges. As consumers and governments demand dramatic shifts to cleaner, more efficient technologies, industrial and international cooperation will be essential to bring these sustainable technologies to scale.

This newsletter is brought to you by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). Reliance is the largest private business in India, with a growing focus on synthetic biology. The company is applying insights from the field to its big energy, environmental, textile, and petrochemical businesses. It is innovation that transformed Reliance from a small textile trading firm into India's largest private sector enterprise and a Fortune 500 company. Their innovations touch many facets of life in India – be it transportation, retail, or sustainable green technologies.

We have put together a list of everything you need to know about chemicals and materials, and the major developments in the last months. Join the discussion at SynBioBeta 2023: The Global Synthetic Biology Conference May 23 - 25, and the track dedicated to this topic.

• Solugen raised $200M to make greener chemicals with synthetic biology: The company is on a mission to decarbonize the chemicals industry and is pulling in some significant capital along the way. Congratulations to Gaurab Chakrabarti and the Solugen team for having their very own Bioforge included in Popular Science "100 Greatest Innovations of 2022". Solugen has built a "Bioforge" plant outside of Houston, TX, that produces 10,000 tons of chemicals annually through a process that yields zero air emissions or wastewater.

Gaurab Chakrabarti, CEO of Solugen.

• Exciting news for LanzaTech for their successful SPAC and for being traded on the Nasdaq. The carbon capture and transformation company is revolutionizing biomanufacturing by using synthetic biology to convert CO2 emissions from power plants into new products. Congratulations to the LanzaTech team, including founder Sean Simpson and CEO Jennifer Holmgren, who will be speaking at SynBioBeta 2023 this May.

• Researchers at synthetic biology company LanzaTech in Illinois engineered the bacteriumClostridium autoethanogenum to ferment carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into everyday chemicals like acetone and isopropanol.

• Leather tannery Ecco partners with mycelium material brand Ecovative: The partnership aims to create new sustainable materials for footwear, fashion, and apparel that could replace animal hide. Ecovative’s mycellium features properties similar to foam and leather, without the detrimental environmental impact.

Eben Bayer, CEO of Ecovative.

• MicroByre receives funding for a project on scalable AI assisted strain engineering and optimization: This project will develop open data exchange standards for fermentation, and then demonstrate their utility for optimizing bioproduction by using them to aggregate process data from multiple sites for machine learning.

Sarah Richardson, CEO of MicroByre.

• Visolis has raised $8 million to make carbon-negative materials: The Berkeley-based startup closed a seed funding round led by BlueYard Capital, bringing total funding to date to $8 million. The company is combining biology and chemistry to create sustainable high-performance materials, jet fuels, and specialty chemicals.

Visolis founder and CEO, Deepak Dugar, in the lab.

• How Synthetic Biology Can Make a Materials Difference: Many see synbio materials, chemicals, and ingredients as high-potential opportunities to make lower-carbon, or even nature-positive, materials with new functionality. BCG outlines the potential of the biological approach to making products.
• Decarbonizing Chemicals in the Global Energy Transition: Synthetic biology startup Industrial Microbes is developing carbon-negative materials to enable the transition to a circular economy and to reduce the carbon footprint of the chemical industry.
• EnginZyme raises €21 Million in series B to accelerate the commercialization of its cell-free biomanufacturing technology. The company combines the power of biology with the efficiency of the chemical industry for a best-of-both-worlds solution to accelerate the shift toward more sustainable manufacturing.

Karim Engelmark Cassimjee, CEO and co-founder of EnginZyme.

Chemicals & Materials at SynBioBeta:

Here are some of the upcoming sessions:

Related Sponsors

We hope you enjoyed this Chemicals & Materials wrap up newsletter and I hope that you’ll choose to join us in May at SynBioBeta 2023: The Global Synthetic Biology Conference.

Regards,
John

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John Cumbers
Founder, SynBioBeta

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