Zymofix raises €6M to industrialise microbial manufacturing for farming
What's the deal? Belgian industrial biotechnology company Zymofix has raised a €6 million ($6.8 million) Series A led by First Imagine!, with participation from existing investors VP CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, HTGF, and The Nest Family OfficeDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The company will put the money toward a new manufacturing plant in Deinze to move its solid-state fermentation technology into industrial production.
What's the endgame? Zymofix operates as a manufacturing partner rather than developing its own microbial strains. Its Zyft platform grows bacteria, fungi, and yeasts on solid substrates made from biomass residues, instead of in liquid fermentation tanks. The company says more than 170 strains have been tested on the platform.
Why now? Demand from Zymofix's existing customers — more than 15, mostly multinational agricultural input companies — has already exceeded its current production capacity.
The Deinze facility, expected to begin production in the fourth quarter of 2027, will have an initial capacity of 300 tonnes a year, enough to supply microbial products for roughly 1 million hectares. A further €25 million expansion planned for 2028 would raise capacity to 2,000 tonnes a year, covering about 10 million hectares.
What could go wrong? The €25 million second phase is contingent on successful commissioning of the initial production line. The €6 million investment itself will be funded partly through the equity round and partly through revenue from existing programs.
Agricultural-input companies are expanding portfolios of biostimulants, biofertilizers, and biocontrol products, but scaling the production of microorganisms remains a sector-wide bottleneck.
"Finding a promising microorganism is only part of the challenge. The harder part is manufacturing it consistently, efficiently and at the volumes the market requires," said Emile Redant, co-founder and chief executive officer of Zymofix.
The signal: As microbial technologies gain ground as alternatives to conventional farm inputs, manufacturing — not discovery — is becoming the chokepoint. "Zymofix has done the hard part: it has taken solid-state fermentation from a laboratory technique to a validated platform," said Boris Dorin, a partner at First Imagine!.
Read more: fertilizerdaily.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
