Cauldron, a global fermentation company based in Australia, has closed an AUD 9.5m (approx. $6.25m) Series A funding round.
The start-up’s continuous fermentation, or ‘hyper-fermentation’ technology, deploys a novel bioreactor design and proprietary growth medium formulation. This aims to improve the economics of large-scale fermentation production by five times compared to the current industry standard, allowing more bio-based products to reach price parity and achieve mainstream adoption.
Key to Cauldron’s technology is the ability to run continuous hyper-fermentation production compared to the short-term ‘batch’ production widely used today. Cauldron has successfully run a 10,000-litre production system continuously for more than eight months without contamination or ‘genetic drift’ of the microbes – two of the biggest challenges in running long-term fermentation.
Michele Stansfield, CEO and co-founder at Cauldron, said: “Cauldron has proven its precision fermentation at an industrially relevant scale, unlocking a significant decrease – between 30% and 50% – in the cost of goods for our customers vs traditional batch fermentation”.
Stansfield helped to develop Cauldron’s technology as the general manager at Agritechnology, which spent 35 years researching and developing continuous fermentation systems for the agricultural market in Australia. Cauldron acquired Agritechnology’s precision fermentation IP through its seed round in 2023, aiming to commercialise and scale the technology globally.
This recent raise brings Cauldron’s total funding to $20 million. It will enable the company to support faster customer growth, build use cases around the application of its technology, and finalise partners and plans for a 500,000-litre facility. Horizons Ventures led the Series A round, with Sosv and In-Q-Tel (IQT) joining existing investor Main Sequence.
In the meantime, Cauldron is already working with global commercial partners across sectors at its existing 25,000-litre facility in Orange, New South Wales. Cauldron’s long-term plan is to build plants worldwide to deliver hyper-fermentation production for partners in bio-based products.
Po Bronson, Sosv GP and IndieBio managing director, commented: “Michele and Cauldron’s history of succeeding at long-run fermentation is unparalleled. The benefits of the technology – the ability to continuously produce up to 50% lower net unit costs, and 20% more output with 45% less capex – dismantle a major obstacle for the industry and position the company as a critical manufacturing partner for companies building a more sustainable future.”
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024
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