Tiamat Sciences, a biotechnology start-up based in Durham, NC, raised $3m in seed financing to complete development of growth factors for cultivated meat and proteins for the pharma industry. 

Tiamat uses a proprietary molecular farming platform that replaces bioreactors with plants, producing key proteins 10x cheaper than the current market. "Our technology can help to promote animal-free alternatives not only for food but also for the pharmaceutical industry," said France-Emmanuelle Adil, founder and CEO of Tiamat Sciences. "Plants are a great system to work with; they grow fast, consume little water and energy, and are compostable. The technology offers production flexibility for a diversified product portfolio."

About their growth media for cultivated meat, in an interview with The Crunch, Adil estimates that with efforts from Tiamat Sciences and others, its cost could go down 1,000 times, from $2 million to $2,000 per gram by 2025. "Affordable animal-free growth factors are a long-awaited ingredient for cellular-agriculture companies in their mission to bring cultured meats to the market," said Ryan Bethencourt, CEO of Wild Earth and Tiamat Science's chairman. "Thanks to its innovative production platform using plants as bioreactors, I'm confident that the Tiamat team will address both the price and scalability challenges of one of the most exciting markets of the century."

Tiamat also produces biomolecules for regenerative medicine and novel vaccine production, namely pharmaceutical-grade cytokines for cell and gene therapy, and an enzyme for mRNA synthesis. 

The company already operates two sites, one in in Belgium and one in the U.S. Part of the funding will be used to build a new pilot production facility at the Research Triangle Park in Durham, North Carolina.

"We follow best-in-class founders into the future as they create the missing pieces of their industries," said Phil Black, co-founder of True Ventures, which led the funding round. "This is absolutely the case with the Tiamat team. Their innovations in cellular agriculture and biotechnology will advance multiple industries and even the work of other companies in our portfolio. We're here to play a supporting role in this exciting shift to a more plant-based future."

To learn more about Tiamat Sciences, visit their website tiamat-sciences.com, or get in touch with them with the button below.