In Colorado, Cascade Bio has secured $6 million to expand production of biocatalysts that cut costs and unlock biobased production.
The funding includes a $2.8M seed round led by Endurance28 with participation from Stray Dog Capital, 1Flourish, Range Ventures, 10VC, and Amplify, as well as $3.2 million in nondilutive funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation through the Advancing Cell-Free Systems Toward Increased Range of Use-Inspired Applications initiative and an SBIR Phase II award.
Cascade’s technology uses cost-effective materials to keep expensive enzymes lasting significantly longer. So far, Cascade has worked on over 30 different enzymes and is 100% successful at improving stability under tough industrial conditions, including for over 20 paying customers. These early collaborations include some of the world’s largest chemical, flavor and fragrance, food ingredient and pharmaceutical companies helping them incorporate more biology into their manufacturing processes.
“Through our early-stage collaborations, we are already seeing the potential impact of our technology,” Alex Rosay, CEO, said in a press statement. “We are seeing enzymes that crash out in hours maintain their activity for months. This order of magnitude improvement in biocatalysis will change the industry by dramatically improving costs and ease-of-use for nature’s catalysts.”
