MaHui | Cataya Bio Raises Over RMB 100 Million in Series A+ Round, Source Code Capital Continues to Increase Stake

源码资本·November 7, 2022·0·0

#MaKe Key Updates from Source Code Capital and MaHui Members

Cataya Bio (柯泰亚生物科技有限公司) announced the completion of an A+ round of over RMB 100 million, led by Eight Roads and HSG, with existing investors Source Code Capital and FoodXin Capital following on. Source Code Capital led the company's Series A round. The proceeds will be used for pipeline R&D and commercialization, team expansion, and accelerating the construction and operation of production facilities.

Previously, Cataya Bio completed a Series A round of over RMB 100 million in the first half of 2022. This latest financing marks the company's third round within just one year of its founding.

Founded in September 2021, Cataya Bio is a synthetic biology company dedicated to creating pure, safe, and sustainable bio-based products. With a global vision and resource capabilities, the company is headquartered in Shanghai, China, and is soon establishing R&D and business operations in Japan and the United States. Leveraging cutting-edge synthetic biology technology and advanced bio-manufacturing, Cataya Bio provides natural, green, and sustainable innovative raw materials for the nutrition, personal care, and pharmaceutical markets — helping society move away from petroleum dependence and addressing global challenges including environmental pollution, carbon emissions, and climate change.

Cataya Bio is one of the few synthetic biology companies worldwide that possesses both R&D capabilities and production delivery capacity. Founder and CEO Dr. Lishan Zhao previously served as VP of R&D and China President at Amyris, a pioneer in synthetic biology in the United States. The founding team, led by Dr. Zhao, brings together over 40 years of combined experience in synthetic biology research and product development across China and overseas. In its first year, the company has assembled a 30-person team drawn from leading synthetic biology enterprises including Amyris, Evonik, and Meihua Holdings Group Co., Ltd., and has initially built a world-class R&D platform with its proprietary product pipeline advancing rapidly. Drawing on the team's global perspective and resources, Cataya Bio has already deepened partnerships with multiple overseas companies; by combining advanced overseas R&D technology with China's local bio-manufacturing supply chain advantages, layered on top of its own advanced synthetic biology platform, the company achieves end-to-end product production and delivery.

Synthetic biology technology has gained broad recognition and application worldwide. China's 14th Five-Year Plan repeatedly affirmed the value of synthetic biology in the bioeconomy, calling to "promote innovation in synthetic biology technology, breakthroughs in key technologies such as computational design, high-throughput screening, efficient expression, and precise regulation of bio-manufacturing strains, and orderly advancement of applications in new drug development, disease treatment, agricultural production, material synthesis, environmental protection, energy supply, and new materials development" — driving transformative change in the bio-manufacturing industry. The recent executive order issued by the Biden administration in the United States to protect American bioeconomic development further confirms the critical value of synthetic biology on a global scale.

The rapid development of synthetic biology requires both platform-driven R&D capabilities and manufacturing capacity. China possesses well-developed bio-manufacturing infrastructure and the world's largest consumer market, yet its overall R&D capabilities — including strain development — lag behind countries such as the United States. Take the bio-fermentation industry as an example: China is a major bio-fermentation producer, with output value and volume ranking among the world's highest, and multiple bio-fermentation categories holding top global output values. China's bio-fermentation industry chain is also highly complete, with stable and low-cost production factors including engineering talent, energy, and raw materials, and precision production equipment gradually achieving domestic autonomy. However, because China's bio-fermentation industry initially grew from imported foreign technology, its independent R&D and screening capabilities for key strains remain seriously inadequate — a bottleneck constraining China's transformation into a true bio-intelligent manufacturing powerhouse. Meanwhile, markets such as the United States and Japan possess the world's most advanced R&D technology platforms; companies like Amyris and Ginkgo have spent over a decade building automated, high-throughput efficient strain optimization platforms, combining big data and machine learning to enable automated, intelligent modification of chassis cells, giving them the ability to rapidly respond to downstream product demands. Yet the US and Japanese markets face high labor costs, limited large-scale production facilities, incomplete local production supply chains, and an increasingly pronounced manufacturing "hollowing out" trend following COVID-19 disruptions, leaving them without systematic bio-manufacturing infrastructure.

On completing this financing round, Dr. Lishan Zhao commented: "As an emerging, multidisciplinary integrated technology, synthetic biology has the potential to transform biological R&D methods, dramatically improve R&D efficiency, shorten development timelines, and reduce product development investment. The application of synthetic biology can accelerate the global shift from traditional petrochemical-based production to sustainable bio-based production. The global chemical products market is valued at $4 trillion, while bio-based products currently account for only 6% — creating unlimited possibilities for future bio-manufacturing development based on synthetic biology technology. Companies that combine top-tier R&D with large-scale manufacturing capabilities are the ones that can truly realize the disruptive potential of synthetic biology and create tremendous societal value in this global bioeconomy wave."