Today, Evonetix, a synthetic biology company bringing semiconductor technology to DNA synthesis, announced a $24 million financing round, bringing its total series B funding to over $54 million. The funding round was led by Foresite Capital, with participation from Molten Ventures, Morningside, DCVC, Cambridge Consultants, Civilization Ventures, and Providence.
As a result of the investment, the Cambridge-based biotech will be able to continue developing semiconductor chips at a commercial scale and extend its gene assembly capabilities to deliver accurate, gene-length DNA at a benchtop scale. In the rapidly growing field of synthetic biology, this platform could revolutionise how DNA is prepared and delivered to users, accelerating research in pharma, biotech, food, agriculture, and data storage applications.
Colin McCracken, Chief Executive Officer at Evonetix, commented: “This substantial investment round demonstrates continued confidence in the progress of our technical development and its potential to revolutionise the accessibility of gene synthesis. Evonetix is in a very exciting phase, having recently opened our early access program. This investment will support us as we execute on our commercial strategy to put benchtop gene synthesis in the hands of users.”
Paul Beastall, Chair of the Board of Directors at Evonetix, said: “We’re delighted to have secured additional funding from our existing investors in this oversubscribed round, testament not only to the promise of our novel approach to gene synthesis, but also the unrivalled expertise of our interdisciplinary team.”
Jim Tananbaum Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Foresite Capital, commented: “We continue to be impressed by the Evonetix team and technology, and are excited to lead this round to accelerate their commercial strategy and make gene synthesis more accessible.”
Nelly Markova, Principal, Molten Ventures said: “Molten has been a big supporter of Evonetix from the early days. We are delighted with the huge progress the company has made towards revolutionising the gene synthesis process and look forward to continuing our partnership.”Co-founded in late 2015 by Cambridge entrepreneur Hermann Hauser and technology consultants Cambridge Consultants Ltd (CCL), Evonetix’s proprietary synthesis process, thousands of individual thermally controlled reaction sites, or ‘pixels’, are used to synthesise DNA on the chip surface, and then assembled into long DNA using the company’s patented Binary Assembly process. With this approach, thousands of sequences can be synthesized on a single chip, accelerating research in the exciting field of synthetic biology by facilitating the assembly of long DNA in a matter of days rather than weeks.
