Circe Announces $5M Seed Round and Pilot Plant
With its first production facility, Circe aims to make carbon-negative products
Boston, MA, Sept. 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Circe, a carbon-negative manufacturing company, announced today a $5M Seed Round. Investors in this round include ReGen Ventures, Undeterred Capital, Ponderosa Ventures, Bee Partners, Exceptional Ventures, Climate Capital, and Safar Partners. In addition to its funding round, Circe also announced the installation of its pilot plant in Waltham, MA. With the operation of the plant, Circe will be able to move out of the lab where it demonstrated proof of concept and begin producing carbon-negative molecules at the next scale.
While their platform can create a variety of important molecules, the company’s current focus is on fats and oils. Oils are ubiquitous and play a central role in food, cosmetics, and biofuels; however, conventional production has a significant negative environmental impact. Traditional production of fats and oils from plants and animals currently accounts for 7% of global emissions. Additional expansion in capacity is synonymous with deforestation and biodiversity loss. There is an urgent need for sustainable and carbon-negative alternatives like those developed by Circe.
Circe has demonstrated their ability to produce functional ingredients by producing a range of prototypes, from confectionery, dairy products, sugars, and protein to polymers and biofuels. Their pilot plant, accelerated by an ARPA-E contract, will enable Circe to utilize CO2 emissions to create these valuable outputs, establishing its position as a first mover in advanced gas fermentation with its tailored chemical production.
“Our microbes are doing what nature has done for billions of years — using CO2 to build complex molecules. All we’re doing is accelerating the process,” said Shannon Nangle, Co-founder and CEO of Circe. “With this funding and our new pilot plant, we’re proving that carbon-negative manufacturing of drop-in molecules is possible, but most importantly, that it is the surest path to pursue scale and price parity with incumbent methods. This is about reimagining production from the molecule up.”
With their unique gas fermentation technology, Circe plans to replace carbon-intensive chemicals that have vulnerable supply chains with carbon-negative alternatives. Circe reverses the equation on carbon emissions, producing the same chemicals found in nature in a process that consumes CO2 rather than produces it. Because every carbon atom in Circe’s products comes directly from CO2, Circe’s process consumes 3 kg of CO2 for every 1 kg of oil produced, which enables a completely carbon-negative manufacturing process,
Biological alternatives, like traditional fermentation, have high input costs and struggle to be cost-competitive. Chemical processes, which can generate simple molecules at scale, are limited in their ability to produce complex molecules. Circe enables complex, high-volume products with lower costs by combining the best of both biological and chemical processes.
As we continue to expand our innovative capabilities, we’re actively seeking partnerships to co-develop products across a spectrum of needs. While we maintain a strategic focus on oils, our discussions are broadening to sugars, proteins, and polymers. We’re open to initiating new conversations with forward-thinking companies ready to create the next generation of products from CO2.
Circe has raised $14.5 million to date, including $5.5 million from non-dilutive sources. The company also has a worldwide, exclusive licensing agreement with Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering to commercialize a novel bioproduction technology.
About Circe
Circe is a carbon-negative manufacturing company. Through advanced gas fermentation, we produce industry-agnostic chemicals on site. Our platform enables the production of complex, high-volume products, securing the supply chain of essential molecules at a parity with incumbents.
Circe is based in Boston, MA, and is a spin-off from The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. To learn more, please visit: https://www.circebioscience.com/
CONTACT: Juan Avila Circe Biosciences Inc. juan@jones-dilworth.com
