Cataya Biotechnology was founded in September 2021 by Amyris’ former vice president of global R&D and president of China, and has reportedly completed four rounds of financing in the last two years.
Recently, Shanghai Cataya Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (referred to as Cataya Biotech) has completed a Series B financing round of 250 million yuan ($34.4 million) led by Hengxu Capital and Eight Roads Ventures with follow-on investments from Henan Huirong and Bits Bites. Yuanqi Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.
It is reported that this financing round marks the fourth round of financing completed by Cataya Biotech within nearly two years since its establishment, accumulating a total funding reserve of nearly 500 million yuan ($68.83 million).
Founded in September 2021 by the former Global Vice President of Research and Development and China President of Amyris, Cataya Biotech brings together talents from home and abroad, including MeiHua Bio, Evonik Industries from Germany, and former executives from Amyris. Through advanced biomanufacturing, the company provides natural, green, and sustainable innovative raw materials for the personal care, nutrition, pharmaceutical, and other markets. It is a synthetic biology company dedicated to creating pure, safe, and sustainable bio-based products.
Currently, Cataya Biotech has the “DBTL” (Design-Build-Test-Learn) platform capabilities, covering core areas including data science, strain engineering, in vivo enzyme engineering, fermentation engineering, purification and separation, scale-up production, and more. Additionally, Ketaiya Biotech’s synthetic biology platform has achieved initial scale, realizing full-process digitalization and automation, enabling efficient empowerment of the entire R&D, process, and production workflow. With the support of the R&D platform, the company has already launched two products and completed strain and process development as well as small-scale trials for multiple product pipelines. The focus is on the biosynthesis of terpenes, amino acids and their derivatives, and oligosaccharides.
Dr. Zhao Lishan, the founder of Cataya Biotech, stated, “In the past year and a half, the company’s platform technology has gradually improved, and the R&D efficiency has greatly increased, successfully driving multiple product pipelines to enter pilot or commercialization stages beyond expectations. This round of financing will help us further enhance the advantages of our R&D platform while focusing on improving our scale-up production capabilities to accelerate the commercialization process of our products.”
Zang Jialun, Managing Partner and Head of China at Eight Roads Ventures, expressed, “We firmly believe in the prospects of synthetic biology and biomanufacturing in China. Dr. Zhao and his team, as top-tier composite talents in the industry, have demonstrated impressive progress and breakthroughs in various aspects, including the accumulation of R&D platforms, multi-level pipeline layout, scale-up, and commercialization within just two years since the company’s establishment.”
