String Bio has raised $20 million in its latest funding round © Forbes India
String Bio, a biotech innovator, has signed a strategic development agreement with Woodside Energy Technologies Pty Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of global energy company Woodside Energy Group Ltd Woodside. Woodside has also decided to invest in String Bio's Series-B equity raise, joining other investors like Ankur Capital, Dare Ventures, Redstart, Zenfold Ventures and others in the $20 million raise.
String Bio has built an innovative technology platform that leverages advances in biology, fermentation technology, chemistry and process engineering to convert the energy in methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into diverse value-added products. Products enabled by String’s platform range from protein ingredients for animal and fish nutrition, to innovative crop inputs, to products for biodegradable polymers.
The differentiated innovation delivers on decarbonisation while increasing supply of key inputs for diverse sectors. String had previously set up its first multi-purpose gas fermentation facility in Bangalore that can run on methane from both natural gas and biogas. The current investment and collaboration will enable String to further drive the market growth of its products and strengthen its decarbonisation impact.
Woodside Energy CEO Meg O’Neill said the company aimed to thrive through the energy transition with a resilient and diversified portfolio. “Our investment in String Bio builds on our ability to potentially abate greenhouse gases through the conversion of carbon into useful products. We believe String Bio’s technology could eventually be used to recycle methane at Woodside facilities. It could also be deployed at third-party sites with available biomethane such as landfill facilities and farms,” she said.
Speaking on the development, Dr Ezhil Subbian, co-founder and CEO, String Bio said, “the vision for String has been to leverage cutting edge advances in biotechnology to enable better living at significantly reduced environmental footprint. With the Woodside collaboration and Series B raise, we are taking a giant step forward to bring such solutions to market - solutions that are better for people and the planet.”
"String's alternative proteins have been extensively validated for multiple aquatic species and performance differentiators of the protein with regards to growth rate, feed conversion efficiency and survivability have been established. The partnership with Woodside and the Series-B investment will enable to us scale up the production capacity of our sustainable and performance differentiated alternative protein."
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s AR6 report, methane traps around 27 times the amount of heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2) and is responsible for a third of the global warming. Reducing methane emissions is one of the fastest opportunities we have to slow the rate of global warming. Adopting emerging technologies that capture and convert methane gas into useful byproducts can be critical on the world's pathway to net-zero climate emissions.
