Berkeley Spinout Pow.bio Snags 9.5M Series A

Meet Pow.bio, a company founded by Ouwei Wang and Shannon Hall in 2019, that aims to help synthetic biology companies manufacture their products at cost parity amid a market of biomade products estimated to reach $4 trillion by 2040.

“Let us be your rapid prototyping partner. You can get stuff in two or three months, at the most, and you’ll be able to turn quickly.”

Pow.bio is still in the early stages; however, it is already working with multiple clients and bringing in revenue. The company has seen “at least 50% year over year growth in demand,” Hall said.

It is also now buoyed by $9.5 million in Series A capital. Re:Food and Thia Ventures led the round and were joined by Hitachi Ventures, Possible Ventures, XFactor, Bee Partners, iSelect, Climate Capital, Vectors, Better Ventures and Cantos. The new investment gives Pow.bio around $13 million in total funding.

Much of that new funding will be deployed into a demonstration facility in Alameda, California. Once it opens in the summer of 2024, it will be able to transition from gram-scale experimentation to the production of hundreds of kilograms of finished products.

“It will demonstrate our system at scales above where we’re at today, which will enable more partners — we think 20 to 50 partners — to drive product through there, as well as be the blueprint for taking that to multiple locations,” Hall said. “With this proof, we can copy/paste it anywhere. That’s what we think is needed.”