NOOSAVILLE, Australia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Provectus Algae (Provectus), an Australian synthetic biology company specializing in biomanufacturing to produce specialty ingredients for a wide array of industries and applications, has secured $11.4 million in a pre-series A funding round co-led by Hitachi Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Hitachi and Vectr Ventures of Hong Kong. The round was further supported by Possible Ventures, Acequia Capital, existing shareholders and additional private investors.
The new funding will expedite the expansion of the company’s sustainable biomanufacturing platform, support R&D operations to further early stage product development capabilities, increase the commercial production capacity of future and current high-value products under development and drive the commercialization of multiple products already in the company development pipeline.
The Provectus biomanufacturing platform uniquely progresses novel products from ideation to industry scale seamlessly with continuity of production technology. The 24/7 automated closed system platform has been developed to provide customers a competitive edge in scaling natural and biosynthetic products to keep pace with consumer product development cycles. For compound manufacturers/suppliers, Provectus’ breakthrough technology carries a multitude of benefits, including increased quality, greater yield, improved production economics and innovative new product development opportunities.
The company’s current product pipeline includes recombinant proteins developed by the Provectus team along with a suite of natural products in the pipeline, one of which already has a commercial agreement with a world-leading food and beverage ingredients supplier. The company is now leveraging the strengths of the platform to rapidly identify, engineer and scale novel products to meet the needs of multiple global markets.
“We are excited to have Hitachi Ventures join this round, their mandate has high alignment with our vision for Provectus and we look forward to developing a close working relationship with the Hitachi team to expedite the scale of our technology during this next phase of growth and beyond,” said Nusqe Spanton, CEO. “To have the Vectr Ventures team step up again and co-Lead this round alongside Hitachi Ventures means a lot to our team. The support they have provided to date has been invaluable and we are pleased to have their continued backing.”
Provectus is the first cornerstone investment from Hitachi Ventures’ second fund, which makes strategic investments in innovative startups in the fields of environment and healthcare. Hitachi established the second fund earlier this year to strengthen its investment in companies creating environmental value by addressing decarbonization of existing emissions sources and new markets, as well as social value through healthcare, including precision medicine and digital delivery of healthcare.
“Provectus perfectly fits the profile of innovative, early-stage companies that we envisioned when we created Hitachi Ventures’ second fund,” said Pete Bastien, Partner at Hitachi Ventures. “Through this investment and more to come, Hitachi is working to solve the global environmental and social issues in collaboration with like-minded, visionary entrepreneurs. Together, we are working towards the realization of a decarbonized, sustainable society.”
The Provectus platform enables sustainable production of high performance natural and biosynthetic products, addressing supply chain challenges by providing end-to-end product development to large-scale biomanufacturing solutions for corporate customers. By converting Carbon Dioxide and light into high-value and high demand products the technology has the potential to transform the biomanufacturing landscape, offering sustainable and scalable manufacturing solutions for a range of markets and applications.
“We are excited by the speed at which Provectus has progressed since our initial investment and thrilled to return as a co-lead investor. At Vectr we believe in backing visionary founders driven to create solutions for the future of humanity. Nusqe and the team at Provectus are on a mission to create a breakthrough platform with truly global impact and we are excited to be a part of it,” said Jimmy Shum at Vectr Ventures.
ABOUT PROVECTUS ALGAE
Provectus Algae is an Australian biotech company that programs algae to produce the world's most valuable specialty ingredients. By accelerating nature, their team is able to optimize unique microalgae to produce a whole new range of natural products, in a process described as Precision Photosynthesis®. Using next-generation techniques the company has also developed a synthetic biology stack that complements and competes with existing production platforms to deliver high-performance and sustainable products. To learn more, please visit https://provectusalgae.com.
ABOUT HITACHI VENTURES
Hitachi Ventures is the Strategic Corporate Venture Capital arm of Hitachi, Ltd. We invest in innovative startups with strategic relevance to Hitachi, Ltd. that address society’s key technological challenges in target areas such as mobility, health care and smart life, industry, energy and IT. With our offices in Munich and Boston, we cover Europe, Israel and North America. We look for leading startups with exciting technologies and business models which we support as investors as well as through strategic collaborations with Hitachi business units. For more information on Hitachi Ventures, please visit the company’s website at www.hitachi-ventures.com.
