Using precision fermentation as a production process to create bio-based products such as chemicals, drugs, and even cultured meat is still expensive and not yet perfected for scalability.
Enter Izote Biosciences. The startup is developing a proprietary method that allows bacteria to “breathe without oxygen” inside a bioreactor. And it raised a $2.6 million oversubscription last October to do so.
The name Izote (pronounced ee-zoh-tay) was inspired by the national flower of El Salvador.
The technology was originally developed by Izote co-founder and CTO Victor Manuel Reyes-Umaña, who has a background in microbiology and fermentation. He formed the company in 2022 and brought on Samuel Atwood as co-founder and CEO in August 2023. Atwood previously worked at McKinsey doing management consulting.
Atwood explained that Izote’s technology has its roots in synthetic biology, which edits the genomes of different organisms or compounds to create useful inputs. For example, using biotechnology to create treatments or new drugs. It is also used in agriculture, food industry and chemical industry.
The company’s technology enables the creation of what Atwood called “biobased molecules” for a number of industries to produce low-cost local raw materials. Izote uses fermentation as a method, but Atwood described it as “a step change from the traditional fermentation process.”
The traditional method uses microorganisms that have been engineered to produce specific compounds. These require oxygen to breathe. This means that the entire system is designed to ensure that the microbes have constant access to oxygen so that they can survive. In turn, this determines what the bioreactor should look like, how big it should be, and what equipment it needs.
“The cost of this imposes and significantly complicates your processes,” Atwood said. “Our innovation uses an alternative molecule instead of oxygen. It looks like salt and is about 100,000 times more soluble than oxygen. Instead of pumping in air and stirring your broth, our process involves dissolving the salt in the media and your organisms will swim towards it.”
That way, biological processes using Izote’s anaerobic organisms can expect to see more than 70 percent lower capital costs and 50 percent to 100 percent higher gross margins, he said. And customers just need a simpler bioreactor to have more predictable scale-up performance and the ability to extend fermentation longer, Atwood said.
Izote’s first applications will be in the fragrance and flavor industries, and the company is actively in talks with major perfumeries. Future plans include scaling the platform to enable the production of biomolecules across industries such as food and cosmetics.
The company is working on a few projects for clients, but is still in the pre-revenue stage. After receiving a small amount of funding last year, Reyes-Umaña and Atwood decided to seek additional venture capital to build a team that could design and run Izote’s process in a laboratory setting.
Embark Ventures and EGB Capital led the pre-seed round and were joined by Bee Partners, FTW Ventures, Nucleus Capital, Courtyard Ventures, Climate Capital Bio and Redstick Ventures. Bee Partners incubated the company, Atwood said. It has raised $2.6 million in total.
It will take 18 months to determine what Izote’s launch molecules will be and to prove that the molecules can be produced in the lab and with a productivity at least 50 percent better than anything currently on the market, Atwood said.
“Over the last 10 to 15 years, people have gotten really excited about synthetic biology and that you can make almost anything with microorganisms,” Atwood said. “However, we have noticed that companies start with the product and then assume that the financials will follow. This was a point of failure for this industry. Instead, we start with a molecule or set of molecules, where we know from the outset that economies of scale will be competitive. Then we grow this way.”
