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Lygos is an industrial biotechnology company developing a commercial bioprocess for manufacturing bio-based malonic acid. It was founded in 2010 by Eric Steen, Jay Keasling, and Jeffrey Dietrich in Berkeley, California.
Lygos received support from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) for their work on microbial fermentation technology to produce malonic acid. The bioprocess will lower the environmental impact and cost of manufacturing the specialty chemical compared to petroleum-based production processes.
Lygos received $120k in seed funding from Y Combinator, FundersClub, Fifty Years, Brainchild Holdings, and 10xGroup.
Lygos Series A raised $13 million led by OS Fund and IA Ventures along with First Round Capital, Y Combinator's Continuity Fund, Fifty Years, Vast Ventures, and others. Lygos made the following public state regarding what the company plans on doing with its series A funding:
Enter This next phase of growth and continue building our team, our manufacturing, and QC infrastructure, all while providing more fuel for our innovation engine to develop the next new products using our microbial manufacturing technology.
The funding round led by IA Ventures and First Round Capital, along with Y Combinator Continuity Fund and OS Fund closed at $15.5 million dollars in July 2018. On January 24, 2019 Lygos expanded their series B funding round with $5 million in funding from LG Group. The CEO of Lygos made the following statement regarding the companies expansion of their series B funding round:
LG Technology Ventures’ investment further extends our global reach and validates our potential to transform large-scale industries such as consumer electronics, which have been completely reliant on unsustainable, toxic and costly petrotechnology production processes up until now. We look forward to working together with the team at LG Technology Ventures to replace many of these harmful manufacturing and packaging processes with more sustainable specialty bio-based solutions that enable better, safer and more affordable consumer electronics.
