Biopôle start-up Adaptyv Biosystems to build the most powerful protein engineering platform

Having raised CHF 2.5 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Wingman Ventures, start-up Adaptyv Biosystems is set to create the world’s largest protein design database.

Adaptyv Biosystems, a start-up based at the Biopôle in Lausanne (canton of Vaud), is active in the field of high-throughput protein synthesis and screening. Using synthetic biology and machine learning, Adaptyv massively scales up the number of protein designs that can be explored.

Over the next two years, Adaptyv Biosystems will have built the world’s largest protein design database, which can be used to engineer new proteins for the development of new therapies for previously untreatable diseases and for industrial application.

The founders of Adaptyv Biosystems have developed a protein engineering platform using so-called cell-free systems on highly automated nanofluidic platforms. Instead of relying on genetically engineered living cells to produce a protein of interest, cell-free systems consist only of the biochemical components needed to turn a DNA sequence into a protein.

By avoiding the handling of living cells, cell-free systems can be miniaturized and automated, making them an ideal choice for high-throughput workflows that can screen thousands of protein variants in parallel.

The investment round in the amount of CHF 2.5 million was led by Wingman Ventures and joined by Acequia Capital, Hawktail VC, Rheingau Founders, Founders, Inc, FAST — by GETTYLAB, Axial, Venture Kick, Wingman Campus Fund, S2S Ventures and Y Combinator.