Evonetix extends Series B financing to US$54m

According to Evonetix Ltd, a benchtop gene synthesis specialist, the investment, which also includes existing investors such as Molten Ventures, Morningside, DCVC, Cambridge Consultants, Civilization Ventures and Providence, will enable the continued development of Evonetix’s semiconductor chips to commercial scale. Furthermore, the company wants to use the assets to drive the extension of gene assembly capabilities for its binary assembly technology to deliver gene-length DNA in a benchtop instrument. The platform targets the rapidly growing field of synthetic biology, accelerating research in applications across pharma, biotech, food, agriculture, and data storage. 

Colin McCracken, Chief Executive Officer at Evonetix, commented: “This substantial investment round demonstrates continued confidence in the progress of our technical development and its potential to revolutionise the accessibility of gene synthesis. Evonetix is in a very exciting phase, having recently opened our early access program. This investment will support us as we execute on our commercial strategy to put benchtop gene synthesis in the hands of users.”

Evonetix’s synthesis process utilises a silicon chip to control the synthesis of DNA at many thousands of independent thermally controlled reaction sites, or ‘pixels’, and their assembly into highly accurate long DNA strings on the chip surface. This approach enables the accurate synthesis of thousands of sequences on a single chip to meet the demand for complex libraries and assembly of long DNA in days rather than weeks, accelerating research across the field of synthetic biology.