Sherbrooke, Qué.-based Biointelligence Technologies has raised $5 million CAD in seed funding for its platform aimed at making industrial fermentation bioprocesses less wasteful.
Lead investor Amplify said it sees value in reducing production losses by 10 to 40 percent, as well as avoiding a projected 2.4 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.
The all-equity round was led by Amplify Capital with participation from Investissement Québec, Real Ventures, Anges Québec and AQC Capital, and Boston-based Innospark Ventures. Biointelligence said the investment will support its growth strategy in the United States and Europe with “key hires and strategic partnerships.”
Representatives from Amplify, Innospark, and Anges Québec and AQC Capital all joined Biointelligence as board directors as a result of the round, Amplify partner Daniel Armali told BetaKit. He added that Biointelligence had raised less than $2 million prior to this round.
Founded in 2014 by CEO Joel Sirois, Biointelligence looks to provide biotech companies with information and analytics that can maximize performance and reduce environmental impact.
Biointelligence says microorganisms, including bacteria, yeast, and fungi, are used in bioprocesses to transform nutrients like sugars into biofuel, biofertilizers, biopesticides, biocosmeceuticals, and more. While it claims bioprocesses are generally more sustainable than traditional chemical processes, Biointelligence says it still uses significant amounts of water and energy.
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The startup’s flagship product, the BioIntelligence Analytics Solution (BAS), directly measures the evolution and nutrient consumption of microorganisms in fermenters and bioreactors while providing real-time analytics for plant operators. The BAS then uses machine learning to identify contaminants, reduce batch-to-batch variability, and reduce the production cycle, which results in a five to ten percent increase in batch yields, according to round leader Amplify.
Biointelligence said the BAS is already commercial, with industrial clients in North America and Europe.
“Biointelligence was largely bootstrapped until now, having received very little dilutive investment, which is impressive since it has no technical risk and it still is a hardware innovation, which is very rare at this stage,” Armali told BetaKit. “The funding aids in removing the constraints around manufacturing, deploying, and servicing the Biointelligence solutions to academic centers, and customers with global asset owners.”
In September 2022, Amplify secured $30.7 million for its second fund with an aim of increasing its presence in Québec and helping more traditional investors think about impact investing. By backing Biointelligence, the noted impact investor said it sees value impacts in reducing production losses by 10 to 40 percent in fermentation and cell culture facilities, as well as avoiding a projected 2.4 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.
In 2017, Biointelligence was selected to join the Canadian Technology Accelerator in Boston, which focused on giving startups resources to grow and scale.
Feature image courtesy Crystal Kwok on Unsplash.
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