Paris’ baCta raises €7 million to use microorganisms as programmable molecular factories for industrial ingredients
baCta, a Paris-based industrial BioTech startup focused on AI-powered bioproduction of industrial ingredients, has today announced a €7 million Seed funding round.
The round was led by LocalGlobe and Daphni, with participation from OVNI Capital and notable business angels, including founders of Phagos, Genomines and MistralAI.
“We are entering a new era where microorganisms can be used as programmable molecular factories to synthesise organic molecules profitably at commercial scale. This investment allows us to reach industrial scale for our first ingredient, and demonstrate the value of our unique AI-driven approach, proving that we can make the supply of industrial ingredients both resilient and abundant,” said Mathieu Nohet, founder and CEO of baCta.
Founded in 2024 by Nohet and Marie Rouquette, baCta’s mission is to enable the sustainable abundance of valuable molecules. The company produces industrial ingredients by leveraging AI and precision fermentation to turn microorganisms into programmable molecular factories.
According to baCta, the demand for industrial ingredients is skyrocketing, but current production methods, such as extraction from scarce natural sources or petrochemical synthesis, are expensive, seasonal, and susceptible to geopolitical and climate disruptions. Although bioproduction provides a holistic solution, creating high-yield industrial strains has traditionally been a slow and costly trial-and-error process.
baCta states that it tackles this challenge by utilising recent advances in synthetic biology, robotics, and generative AI. It emphasises its exploration of the genomic “dark matter“, long-range interactions, and regulatory pathways that are often overlooked by traditional engineering methods, enabling it to design optimised strains “with unprecedented speed”. The platform employs bio-based reinforcement learning to cut costs and development timelines.
The French startup’s first product is astaxanthin, an antioxidant widely used in human health, nutrition, cosmetics, and animal feed. It notes that the market is currently dominated by synthetic versions derived from petrochemicals or from expensive natural extraction from microalgae.
Using its proprietary yeast strain, baCta produces an ingredient that serves as a direct drop-in replacement. The company projects that its process will achieve unit economics competitive with synthetic alternatives while offering the premium quality of a natural product.
With the fresh capital, the company aims to scale up astaxanthin production, validate industrial processes at pilot and commercial stages, leverage a strategic partnership with a French industrial player to access production facilities, and start commercialisation.
It also aims to expand the platform and accelerate the deployment of baCtaForge, the company’s strain engineering platform, combining a Precision Biofoundry and a Genome-to-Factory AI model.
“The transition away from petrochemicals is one of the most critical challenges of our time. baCta’s platform approach offers a scalable, economically viable path to replace dirty supply chains with biological factories. Their vision for 2035 aligns perfectly with our thesis on sustainable industrial transformation,” said Pierre-Yves Meerschman, co-founder and Managing Partner at daphni.
In October 2024, the company raised €3.3 million in pre-Seed funding, led by OVNI Capital.
The post Paris’ baCta raises €7 million to use microorganisms as programmable molecular factories for industrial ingredients appeared first on EU-Startups.
