California, US-based photomolecular biology firm, Prolific Machines, has closed a $55 million Series B financing round.

The round was led by the corporate venture arm of Fonterra Co-operative, The Ki Tua Fund, with participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Mayfield, SOSV, Shorewind Capital, Darco Capital, Conti Ventures, In-Q-Tel (IQT) and several others.

Founded in 2020, Prolific Machines has developed a platform that enables commercial partners to efficiently produce higher-quality biological products across cellular agriculture, nutritional protein production, therapeutic protein production, tissue engineering, disease models, drug screening and more.

Today’s cellular biology processes are constrained by expensive, inefficient, and imprecise molecular methods. Prolific brings together safe and effective tools – light, bioengineering, hardware and AI – in new ways that enable the firm to control any cellular function in any cell type. Prolific’s photomolecular biomanufacturing platform leverages light to guide cellular behaviour and optimise performance over time using AI technology.

This round of funding will accelerate the platform’s commercialisation with partnerships in the coming months.

By adding more control to biological production, Prolific enables its partners to more efficiently biomanufacture high-value bioproducts, including whole cuts of cell-based meat, nutritional proteins and antibodies to treat diseases, among other innovations.

Prolific Machines’ co-founder and CEO, Deniz Kent, said: “We have proven that we can successfully control several cellular processes using light. This enables unparalleled control in both the space and the time axes, and this control is critical to making cheaper and higher quality products. I’m thrilled to be introducing the platform we have built to the world, and I'm excited to see all the different ways our partners will use it.”

Kent continued: “We have only scratched the surface of what’s possible with our technology. We have an incredible group of investors and commercial partners joining us to scale our impact. Stay tuned for some big announcements from us in the months ahead.”

Maximilian Hoerner, Prolific Machines’ head of optogenetics, commented: “I joined Prolific because it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to use the immensely powerful optogenetics tools to bring new and superior bioproducts to life across diverse commercial applications. This is the first time light’s ability to control cellular functions is being used outside of research labs to make everyday essentials. It’s incredibly exciting and the start of something very big for lots of different industries.”

Prolific plans to scale its tech through existing and new partnerships, engaging customers who are looking for higher quality, more precise and more efficient ways to biomanufacture novel and existing ingredients and products.

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