To date, the Emeryville-based company has raised $574 million in three rounds. Participants included SoftBank Vision Fund, Goldman Sachs, and Hanwha Asset Management.
Zymergen’s technology uses synthetic biology to optimize bacteria, yeasts and fungi used in fermentation-based processes to produce ingredients for use in agriculture, consumer goods, and food. Processes using such organisms have been hindered by low productivity and extended time to market.
“Our customers have products shipping at hundreds of thousands of metric tons,” Zymergen’s chief commercial officer, Tom Stephenson tells Chemical Engineering News. “We’ve proven that the microbes we’ve improved are working in the factory.”