Ferment, a venture studio specializing in bio-enabled product companies, has announced a new $20 million studio fund to accelerate the development of biotech solutions for critical industries such as energy, agriculture, materials, and health. The fund’s inaugural investment of $2.5 million has gone to Alchemyca, a company leveraging enzymes, sensors, and AI to enhance the conversion of organic waste into renewable natural gas. Alchemyca joins a growing roster of Ferment-founded companies, all of which have launched revenue-generating products within three years and formed partnerships with leading corporations like Vale, Suncor, Chanel, and Nutreco.
Biology has enormous untapped potential to revolutionize industries, delivering greater efficiency and sustainability while delighting consumers with superior products, said Jason Kakoyiannis, managing partner at Ferment. Our mission is to build companies that accelerate the commercialization of biotech innovations, meeting the demand for high-performance, sustainable, and economically viable solutions.
Tackling the Right Problems
Since its founding in 2021, Ferment has established seven companies across diverse sectors, including nutrition, beauty, industrial waste, animal health, and energy. According to Kakoyiannis, the biotech industry’s challenge isn’t a lack of technology but identifying the right problems to solve. While biotech already generates hundreds of billions of dollars in market value, he believes this is only the beginning.
Ferment’s unique approach emphasizes product development over research, enabling quicker time-to-market and leveraging outsourced technical infrastructure like cell engineering and enzyme manufacturing. The CEOs of Ferment-built companies bring over 20 years of industry expertise on average, ensuring a deep understanding of market-specific challenges that technologists often overlook.
Alchemyca: A New Frontier in Renewable Energy
The studio fund’s first major initiative, Alchemyca, is focused on improving renewable natural gas production from organic waste. Current biogas processes typically convert less than 20% of available carbon into biomethane. Alchemyca aims to boost this efficiency by up to 50% using advanced computational tools, sensors, and biological catalysts. These innovations will make organic waste a cost-effective feedstock for not only renewable natural gas but also diverse chemicals and fuels in the future.
Led by industry veteran Patrick Vagner, who previously spearheaded biofuels commercialization at bp, Alchemyca has partnered with technology leaders Ginkgo Bioworks and Novonesis. “Organic waste has the potential to be an invaluable resource with the right optimization tools,” said Vagner. “By addressing the biggest operational challenges for biogas plants, we can transform waste carbon into a productive feedstock, unlocking a new wave of sustainable chemical production.”
Building the Future of Bioinnovation
The $20 million fund represents Ferment’s first committed investment vehicle, transitioning from its previous model as an independent sponsor. The studio aims to attract operators with industry-specific insights who can connect biological solutions to pressing market needs.
“The next wave of biotech breakthroughs will come from visionary product leaders and industry experts,” said Kakoyiannis. “They don’t need PhDs in microbiology but must understand the unsolved problems in their fields.”
Ferment’s leadership team boasts over 50 years of combined experience in leveraging biology for transformative industry applications. Core fund support comes from South Korea’s GS Group, a global conglomerate investing in refining, energy, retail, and construction. With this backing, Ferment aims to deliver bio-enabled products within three years, driving widespread industry adoption and impact.
Ferment is actively seeking experienced operators to help create and scale new companies through its studio fund, ensuring biology’s potential is fully harnessed to meet today’s most urgent challenges.
