Cambridge-based company, Evonetix, has completed a series A financing round, raising $12.3 million to be used in the advancement of its novel gene synthesis platform.
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The platform uses an addressable silicon array to direct the synthesis of DNA at many sites in parallel, followed by an error-detection process to allow the assembly of high-fidelity DNA at scale.
This financing round was co-led by DCVC (Data Collective) of Palo Alto and European-based Draper Esprit. Additionally, it included the Morningside group, alongside existing investors Providence Investment Company (Jersey), Cambridge Consultants (Cambridge, UK), Rising Tide Fund (San Francisco) and Civilization Ventures (San Francisco).
Matt Ocko, managing partner of DCVC, said: “This is a truly novel approach to gene synthesis that can deliver massive parallelisation with an extremely low error-rate for high-complexity RNA and DNA constructs. We are excited to back a team and technology that can materially reduce costs and improve innovation in our own portfolio companies and multiple global industries.”
“Evonetix’s platform offers the prospect of synthesising DNA sequences accurately without limitation of size,” added Vishal Gulati, venture partner at Draper Esprit. “This is the superpower that could transform the world of synthetic biology and allow us to engineer next-generation medicines and better versions of products we use every day.”
Hermann Hauser, the Cambridge-based scientist and entrepreneur, commented: “Synthetic biology will unquestionably be the next frontier in the life sciences and provides the opportunity to fundamentally change the way in which our planet’s resources are managed, but this brings a requirement for very large amounts of DNA synthesised with high accuracy. Evonetix is developing a solution to this problem through its highly parallel and high-fidelity approach to synthesis.”
“We are delighted to be supported by such high-quality investors who have a deep understanding of the requirements of synthetic biology and are committed to this important, emerging area of science, and we look forward to working with them through the next stage of the company’s development,” concluded Tim Brears, Evonetix CEO.