Lygos develops bio-based specialty chemicals and bio-monomers using a full-stack biological engineering platform focused on organic acids and novel chemical functionalities. Its proprietary platform combines high-throughput computational modeling, microbe engineering and screening, and machine learning to identify and develop new bio-routes to chemicals. The company targets applications where traditional industrial chemistry is expensive, toxic, or lacks viable options, including consumer electronics manufacturing and packaging. Lygos says its bio-based products deliver petroleum-like performance at competitive prices and expand performance windows in diverse materials systems. CEO Eric Steen highlighted a strategic collaboration opportunity with LG Technology Ventures to replace harmful manufacturing and packaging processes with sustainable solutions. Financially, Lygos has raised more than $41 million in equity financing and over $10 million in non-equity government funding. Lygos advances a proprietary platform that combines computational modeling, microbe engineering, high-throughput screening and deep learning to systematically develop new bio-chemicals. The company uses modern biotechnology to deliver the benefits of petroleum-based and other industrial chemical technologies at competitive prices and to create new chemical functionalities accessible via biology. Led by co-founder and CEO Eric Steen, Lygos applies its platform to expand performance windows across diverse materials systems. The company plans to use its recent funding to expand the technology platform into new products and markets. Financially, Lygos closed a $15.5M Series B and has raised a total of $40M in equity financing to date, alongside non-equity government funding. It has received non-equity support from the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Science Foundation. Lygos engineers microorganisms to convert low-cost sugar into specialty chemicals used in manufacturing. The company pioneered a technique to produce specialized chemicals and is releasing a method to make malic acid, an ingredient needed in mass electronics production. It combines software and new biochemistry to scale microbial manufacturing and has started shipping its first bio-malonic acid-producing microbes to customers. Lygos is producing "metric ton quantities" of its bio-malonic acid products. The company plans to use new funding to expand its team, manufacturing, and quality-control infrastructure and to fuel further product innovation. Investors cited its potential to supply industrial chemicals with lower environmental impact and cost advantages over petrochemical counterparts.

Total raised

$34M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Jan 2019