Cradle BV bags €5.4m in seed financing

Cradle BV has raised $5.4m to push a machine-learning model-based platform that helps scientists to design and program cells much faster in order to bring microbial and cell-based products faster to the market. The round was led by Index Ventures and Kindred Capital, as well as angel investors Feike Sijbesma, Honorary Chairman and former CEO of Royal DSM; Emily Leproust, founder of Twist Bioscience; and John Zimmer, the co-founder and president of Lyft.

The Delft- and Zurich-based AI start-up that was founded in December 2021 aims to recreate environmentally-friendly alternatives for almost 60% of anything humans use by means of AI-empowered synbio. Synthetic biology is a branch of biological research that specialises in engineering the genes of microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts or mammalian cells in order to create proteins or multiprotein complexes suitable for specific (industrial-scale) uses. That way, the researchers aim to utilise nature’s power to tackle challenges in medical, industrial and agri-biotechnology.

Cradle has created machine-learning models that draw on recent advances in ‘natural language processing’ to predict which parts of a protein’s genetic code a biologist will need to alter the protein’s function. Using wet-lab validation of AI-based outputs, Cradle expects to cut time and cost of synthesis and scaling of a market-ready biological product, as well as to reduce the environmental impact of human consumption.

“By harnessing the power of machine learning, our platform can substantially speed up the design, build and scaling phases when bioengineering proteins, making it possible to create and scale synthetic biology projects much faster and more cost-effectively. Our goal is to reduce the cost and time of getting a bio-based product to market by an order of magnitude so that anyone can bring a bio-based product to market,” explained Cradle’s CEO and cofounder Stef van Grieken.