Using precision fermentation as a manufacturing process to create bio-based products, such as chemicals, medicines, and even cultured meat, remains expensive and has not yet been perfected for scalability.
Get into Izote Biosciences. The startup is developing a patented method that allows bacteria to “breathe without oxygen” inside a bioreactor. And last October it raised a preliminary amount of $2.6 million to get it started.
The name Izote (pronounced ee-zoh-tay) was inspired by the national flower of El Salvador, the home country of Izote co-founder and CTO Víctor Manuel Reyes-Umaña.
The technology was initially developed by Reyes-Umaña, who has experience in microbiology and fermentation. He formed the company in 2022 and hired Samuel Atwood as co-founder and CEO in August 2023. Atwood previously worked at McKinsey as a management consultant.
Atwood explained that Izote's technology has its origins in synthetic biology, which involves editing the genomes of different organisms or compounds to create useful inputs. For example, using biotechnology to create therapies or new medicines. It is also used in the agricultural, food and chemical industries.
The company's technology enables the manufacturing of what Atwood called “bio-based molecules” for various industries to produce low-cost local raw materials. Izote uses fermentation as a method, but Atwood described it as “a radical departure from the traditional fermentation process.”
The traditional method uses microorganisms designed to produce specific compounds. These require oxygen to breathe. That means the entire system is designed to ensure that microbes have constant access to oxygen so they can survive. In turn, that determines what the bioreactor should look like, what size it should be, and the equipment needed.
“The costs of this significantly tax and complicate their processes,” Atwood said. “Our innovation uses an alternative molecule to oxygen. It resembles salt and is approximately 100,000 times more soluble than oxygen. Instead of pumping in air and mixing the broth, our process involves dissolving salt into the medium and the organisms will swim into it.”
In this way, bioprocesses using Izote's anaerobic organisms can expect to have 70% lower capital expenditures and 50% to 100% higher gross margins, he said. And customers just need a simpler bioreactor to get more predictable scale-up performance and the ability to extend fermentation times longer, Atwood said.
Izote's first applications will be in the fragrance and flavor industries, and the company is actively talking to large perfumeries. Future plans include expanding the platform to enable the production of bio-based molecules in industries such as food and cosmetics.
The company is working on some 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 form a team that could design and run Izote's process in a lab.
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 identify what Izote's launch molecules will be and demonstrate that the molecules can be produced in the lab and with productivity at least 50% better than anything currently on the market, Atwood said.
“Over the course of the last 10 to 15 years, people have become very excited about synthetic biology and the fact that you can do almost anything with microorganisms,” Atwood said. “However, we have observed that companies start with the product and then assume that the economy will follow. That has been a point of failure for this industry. Instead, we start with a molecule, or set of molecules, where we know from the beginning that the economy of scale will be competitive. So we grow that way.”
