Imperagen banked €6.02M (£5M) in a Seed round led by PXN Ventures. The Manchester-based biotech startup also received backing from IQ Capital and Northern Gritstone. This latest injection brings the company's total funding to approximately €10.2M since its founding in 2021.
The company develops technology to accelerate enzyme engineering, a process traditionally reliant on slow, physical trial-and-error mutations. Imperagen uses quantum physics-based simulations to predict how millions of enzyme variants will behave before training custom AI models on that data. To ensure accuracy, the startup employs automated robotics to generate experimental data, which is fed back into a closed-loop system to refine its predictive models.
A spin-out from the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, Imperagen is targeting industrial applications in pharmaceuticals, food production, and biofuels. The fresh capital will support the hiring of AI specialists, expansion of its experimental lab facilities, and the development of a go-to-market function. Along with the funding, the company appointed Guy Levy-Yurista as CEO to lead its commercial strategy and industrial partnerships.
As Europe seeks to de-risk high-stakes drug discovery and industrial manufacturing, the convergence of quantum modelling and vertical AI into "wet lab" automation is becoming a critical pillar for the region's biotech sovereignty.
Originally reported by TechCrunch.