Manchester techbio Imperagen has closed a £5 million seed funding round led by PXN Ventures with participation from Imperagen’s existing investors IQ Capital and Northern Gritstone.
Established in 2021 by researchers from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Imperagen is focused on accelerating the process of enzyme engineering. Serving diverse markets, from pharmaceutical manufacturing and life sciences to sustainable fine chemical production and industrial applications, we work hand-in-hand with our customers to de-risk and streamline their product development and fast-track their path to market. Enzymes are biological catalysts used to reduce waste, lower energy usage and decrease overall production costs in everything from pharmaceutical manufacturing and personal care to sustainable chemical production.
However, engineering an enzyme for practical application is a challenging and complex process. Traditional approaches rely on manual screening, a slow and expensive process with a low hit rate. More recently, zero-shot methods have promised smart designs but often fall short when deployed in real world conditions.
Imperagen's proprietary platform combines three stages into a single closed-loop system:
