Twogee Biotech, a young Munich company founded in 2024, has secured €2.16 million in seed funding to bring its enzyme platform to market and help the chemical industry move toward circular, low-CO₂ production. The round was led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Bayern Kapital, joined by AgriFoodTech Venture Alliance and Heinz Entsorgung as strategic backers.
With the seed funding now secured, Twogee plans to commercialise its technology, expand its enzyme and strain portfolio, and support more industrial partners in transforming existing facilities into circular, low-emission operations.
The company aims to position itself as a development partner for enterprises that want to redesign their material streams, not simply optimise them.
Why industry partners are paying attention
For chemical manufacturers and bio-based producers, the appeal is clear. Twogee’s technology allows underutilised biomass side streams, such as agricultural residues or organic industrial by-products, to be converted into usable raw materials with significantly lower CO₂ footprints. This creates a path to new circular value chains, reduces dependence on food crops, and supports regional production models.
By offering a licensing model with local enzyme production at customer sites, Twogee not only cuts transport-associated emissions but also helps partners operate more flexibly and economically. This local-production approach stands out as many industries seek to decentralise supply chains and hedge against global volatility.
Turn side streams into sustainable building blocks
Twogee Biotech was founded by Frank Wallrapp and Helge Jochens, who share over a decade of experience in industrial biotechnology. Backed by the BioM MAxL Incubator, they have equipped the company with in-house laboratories and bioreactors to accelerate customer projects from the lab bench to industrial settings.
At the heart of Twogee’s work is a platform that develops custom enzyme solutions and production strains designed to convert low-value biomass residues into second-generation raw materials. These 2G inputs, particularly sustainable sugars, offer an alternative to food-based or fossil feedstocks, enabling cleaner and more circular material flows.
Unlike traditional enzyme development, Twogee integrates enzyme screening, strain engineering, and fermentation under one predictive system, reducing development cycles and minimising scale-up risks. The company has already produced multiple MVPs and completed paid pilot projects with industrial partners, validating both technical feasibility and commercial interest.
Driving the chemical industry towards circular production
As demand for sustainable raw materials intensifies, Twogee Biotech is stepping into an important gap with technologies that make circular production not just environmentally preferable but economically viable. By converting biomass residues into valuable building blocks, the startup enables companies to reduce reliance on fossil feedstocks while unlocking new revenue streams from materials once treated as waste.
Headquartered in Martinsried, Munich, Twogee is becoming a catalyst for a future where the chemical industry can scale sustainably, using local resources, lower emissions, and more resilient value chains.
Many industrial residual streams contain significant untapped commercial value,” said Frank Wallrapp, CEO of Twogee Biotech. “We help our partners unlock this potential with minimal integration effort and a clear economic value proposition.”
Helge Jochens, CTO and co-founder, added: “A substantial portion of the funding will be invested in expanding our new laboratories at the IZB with predictive bioreactor systems, as well as strengthening our team with experienced process and scale-up experts. This ensures that our developments can be reliably and economically transferred to our customers’ production scale.”
Tilmann Petersen, Investment Manager at HTGF, commented: “At HTGF, we are very proud to invest in Twogee Biotech. With its customer specific enzyme technology, Twogee is building a true enabler of the circular economy that allows many downstream industries to finally unlock long awaited growth potential. Second generation raw materials have the potential to become a real game changer when sustainability and higher profitability go hand in hand, as they do here.”
Monika Steger, Managing Director of Bayern Kapital, added: “Twogee Biotech combines industrial biotechnology with a clear contribution to the circular economy by economically converting biological residues and by-products into high-value second-generation raw materials using customised enzyme solutions. This approach strengthens our life sciences and biotech portfolio in the field of white biotechnology by integrating resource efficiency, sustainability, and industrial scalability in a compelling way. We see significant potential and look forward to supporting the company on its growth journey.”
