News Digest #213 – Five companies raise $207M, aligning business with ocean philanthropy

Hi all,

This week, food tech startup Impossible Foods received an investment of $114 million to expand production of their plant-based burger in the US and Asia. Check out Twist’s coverage of synthetic biology for sustainable food.

Speaking of sustainable food, check out the F3 Fish Oil Challenge, sponsored by The Anthropocene Institute, SynBioBeta, the World Bank and others. The goal is to speed up our transition away from ocean exploitation by developing fish oil replacements for farmed fish. The challenge registration closes at the end of the month and they welcome ideas at all stages of development for the production of sustainable fatty acids. Also, check out this thought-provoking article by SynBioBeta’s Chris Oakes on how to align business and philanthropy to save the ocean.

Poseida Therapeutics, a San Diego-based company translating gene engineering technologies into CAR-T cell therapies, has raised a $30.5 million series B, and Ecovia Renewables, a company engineering microbial systems for chemicals and fuels, announced a partnership with SEPPIC and raised $1 million in seed financing. Protein engineering company Codexis is expecting to raise $32.3 million by selling shares of its common stock, while Synlogic expects to raise $30 million.

Opentrons announced that it will bring the power of low-cost, open-source automation and reproducible protocols to iGEM teams. The company will select 10 iGEM teams to receive their new OT-2 robots free of charge, and offer all teams a 50% discount on an Opentrons robot.

Codexis, Opentrons, and iGEM will all be at SynBioBeta 2018 discussing how they are advancing biological engineering. I hope to see you there too. In other news, Gilson and Synthace just announced a new collaboration aiming to make biological research more efficient and reproducible. Lanzatech just announced its jet fuel derived from ethanol is now eligible for commercial flights! If you love Rob Reid’s work, check out his podcast with George Church.

Regards,
John