In the United Kingdom, open-source biotechnology operating system company Synthace has raised £7.3 million (USD9.8 million) in a Series A funding round.
The funds will be used to add biologists, lab instrumentation manufacturers, reagents and consumable suppliers, bio-design and analysis software developers, and cloud providers.
New investors include White Cloud Capital, Amadeus Capital Partners, and Eleven Two Capital, while existing investors Sofinnova Partners, SOSV and Bioeconomy Capital also participated.
“Our need to heal, feed, fuel and manufacture for a growing population can be met by unlocking the near infinite power of biology but only by bringing software abstraction and more automation to biological R&D and manufacturing, and by enabling biologists to build atop their collective work. That is what [our] Antha platform does,” says CEO Tim Fell.
Isabel Fox, Head of Venture at White Cloud Capital, notes that Antha has already gained traction with pharmaceutical, agritech and industrial biotechnology customers, demonstrating the platform’s “cross-sector applicability.” Existing customers include Dow AgroSciences, Merck & Co., and GlaxoSmithKline.