2 million euros for Exazyme

Berlin-based start-up Exazyme secures €2 million in seed capital from AIX Ventures and Atlantic Labs, for protein development using artificial intelligence.

Exazyme is a young company that specializes in identifying optimal proteins using artificial intelligence. The AI is trained with large datasets to predict the properties of new protein variants. This can identify proteins that, for example, enable rapid catalysis of reactions or function under extreme temperatures.

We believe that the combination of deep expertise in biochemistry and state-of-the-art algorithms will enable the company to deliver outstanding protein engineering solutions in the shortest possible time.

Richard Socher, Founding Partner AIX Ventures

Protein development, which has applications in a market worth €100 billion in areas such as biotechnology, medicine, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and chemistry, has been a lengthy and costly process. Exazyme has developed an approach that drastically reduces the number of experiments required and improves protein performance compared to the current state of the art. In doing so, the proteins developed by Exazyme outperform the previous standard Directed Evolution method (Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018). With collaborations with several universities and initial successes in various industries, Exazyme is well on its way in protein research.

We will see an explosion of possibilities in chemical evolution, as we have seen in computer technology in the last century

Dr. Ingmar Schuster, Cofounder and CEO Exazyme

Exazyme is based in Berlin and was founded in 2022 by Dr. Ingmar Schuster, Philipp Markert and Dr. Jelena Ivanovska. The company is dedicated to protein design, i.e. the development of proteins for use as biocatalysts or antibodies. In doing so, Exazyme relies on the use of artificial intelligence on the computer. Through optimized computer models, the startup can replace many experiments and often achieve improved protein performance. With a web-based platform, Exazyme helps customers optimize proteins faster, more cost-efficiently and more effectively.

We see immense potential for the company to transform the protein development market with its product, which will ultimately uplift the entire biotech sector.

Christophe Maire, Founder Atlantic Labs

The Investors

AIX Ventures is a venture capital fund specializing in investing in artificial intelligence (AI) startups. The company was founded in 2021 by a group of renowned individuals. They include Richard Socher, founder of You.com and former Chief Scientist at Salesforce; Suchi Saria, professor at John Hopkins University and founder of Bayesian Health; Pieter Abbeel, professor at UC Berkeley; Anthony Goldbloom, former CEO of Kaggle; and Chris Manning, professor at Stanford University. AIX Ventures supports pre-seed and seed stage companies that use AI as a central element of their business models

Atlantic Labs is a venture capitalist and startup studio based in Berlin. The company was founded to foster and support innovative technology companies. Atlantic Labs invests in early-stage company growth and focuses in particular on startups in the digital media, e-commerce and software development sectors. The last report on Atlantic Labs on Startbase covered a 135 million exit: Battery Ventures may be buying Vimcar. (ots)