5Y News | "中科国生" Raises Tens of Millions of RMB in Angel Round to Develop and Promote Functional Bio-based New Materials
Transforming lives with biomass.
In November 2021, GS Biotech (Hangzhou) Technology Co., Ltd. (GS Biotech, hereinafter referred to as "GS Biotech"), a bio-based materials R&D company built around the 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) platform compound, announced the completion of a tens of millions of RMB angel round. The round was co-led by 5Y Capital and Matrix Partners China, with YaYi Capital participating. The proceeds will be used for further R&D of HMF and its downstream derivatives, production base construction, and end-market application promotion.
A managing director at 5Y Capital said: "We are honored to participate in GS Biotech's current round as one of the lead investors. HMF is a critical platform compound for bio-based materials. Its downstream applications include many already validated uses, as well as numerous potential applications now being rapidly discovered. If we believe that future material sources will gradually shift from petroleum-based to bio-based, then HMF will unlock enormous industrial value. The mass production and cost of HMF have long plagued the industry. The GS Biotech team, drawing on years of experience and technical accumulation, has achieved breakthrough progress in process technology and is positioned to realize low-cost, large-scale production in the near term. Once we break through the cost-sensitive threshold, we believe market potential will explode rapidly."
GS Biotech was founded in July 2021. Its core team members all come from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP), Chinese Academy of Sciences. The team possesses nearly 20 years of industrialization experience and foundation in biomass catalytic conversion and furan-based materials design and development. DICP is a comprehensive research institute that balances basic research with applied research and combines applied research with technology transfer, particularly in catalysis, where it is academically recognized as having world-class research and technology development capabilities.
As one of the most important bio-based platform compounds, HMF has been dubbed the "sleeping giant" of new materials and has long been a focus of attention in both academia and industry. It is reported that the GS Biotech team has successfully achieved low-cost continuous production of HMF, laying a solid foundation for subsequent large-scale industrialization. At the same time, the team has established the complete technical chain from [HMF] to [derivative monomers] to [end products], and will promote applications in markets including high-performance bio-based polyester materials, bio-based oils, surfactants, pharmaceutical intermediates, feed additives, and food additives.
Functional polyester PEF is one of the most important downstream products of HMF. Compared to traditional PET polyester, PEF offers excellent gas barrier properties (6-8 times that of PET). Adding just 20-30% PEF can significantly enhance a material's gas barrier performance. Therefore, PEF's functional advantages make it particularly suitable for food and beverage and pharmaceutical packaging materials. In the high gas barrier packaging segment alone, the annual market exceeds 100 billion RMB. Additionally, from cradle to end-of-life, PEF's full lifecycle carbon footprint is only 45-55% that of PET.
"A defining characteristic of GS Biotech's biomass materials development is its foundation in creating entirely new materials with novel functionalities. In the future, these new functional materials will bring transformative changes to everyone's lives. Therefore, 'Changing lives with biomass' has become GS Biotech's corporate mission and goal," said Wang Lei, CEO of GS Biotech. In 2022, GS Biotech will build production bases in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, creating a complete industrial demonstration R&D platform and achieving production capacity of 10,000-ton-scale HMF and thousand-ton-scale HMF derivatives.
It is reported that GS Biotech received a strategic investment from CAS Advantages Tech Capital at its founding. Guided by national dual-carbon policies, and with the backing of this round from 5Y Capital, Matrix Partners China, and YaYi Capital, GS Biotech is positioned to create more possibilities in the bio-based functional new materials track.
5Y Capital (formerly Morningside Venture Capital) currently manages approximately RMB 32 billion across USD and RMB dual-currency funds. 5Y Capital seeks out, supports, and inspires solitary entrepreneurs, providing support from the spiritual to all operational aspects. We believe that if the "crazy" you in others' eyes begins to be believed in, the world will become a different place.
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