New Industrial Biotech Firm Debuts

Zymergen, a company that seeks to make biobased chemicals and other materials with the help of robots and novel software, has unveiled itself. The Emeryville, Calif.-based firm also revealed that it raised $44 million in an initial round of venture capital funding. By using robotic automation, machine learning software, and computer analytics, Zymergen intends to “program” microbes to produce high-value molecules. CEO Joshua Hoffman says Zymergen has learned from the mistakes of the industrial biotech field. “We think this is a problem of data and computation rather than one of scientific discovery alone,” he says. Two members of the firm’s leadership team previously worked at the biobased chemicals maker Amyris.