Waterwood

Waterwood (水木未来 / Shuimu Biosciences) is a Beijing-based company building a next-generation drug discovery platform centered on cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) technology . Founded in 2017 with support from the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and Tsinghua University's Institute for Industrial Research, it emerged the same year cryo-EM won the Nobel Prize, with a mission to commercialize domestically produced high-end cryo-EM equipment . The company is led by co-founder and scientific advisory committee chair Wang Hongwei, a Tsinghua University life sciences professor recognized as a leading figure in China's cryo-EM field .

Waterwood's core offering spans both hardware and software: it develops cryo-EM platforms to enable targeted drug design for proteins that resist X-ray crystallography, such as membrane proteins, and has built the SMART software suite, which it describes as the industry's only tool platform covering the full cryo-EM data computation workflow . The company also aims to slash the cost of cryo-EM systems, which currently run 50–80 million RMB per unit and remain accessible primarily to top universities, research institutes, and a handful of multinational pharmaceutical firms .

Gaorong Ventures participated in Waterwood's angel round in 2020 alongside Puhua Capital and Mint Ventures, with the funding directed toward platform development and talent .