Barcelona-based Zymvol, a biotech company specialised in computational enzyme search and engineering, announced that it has secured €3M in a seed funding round.
The latest funding round was led by VC firms Faber Ventures, with participation from Elaia Partners, and Übermorgen Ventures.
Faber is a venture capital firm specialising in early-stage deep tech startups, driving digital transformation and climate action.
“Enzymes power innovation across industries, from sustainable manufacturing to pharmaceutical breakthroughs. Zymvol’s advanced computational solutions go beyond improving efficiency; they strengthen industrial resilience, drive sustainable innovation, and shape the future of global production,” states Sofia Santos, Partner at Faber Ventures.
Fund utilisation
The company plans to use the funds to improve its lab in the Barcelona Science Park.
Additionally, the company plans to enhance its technology, grow its sales and marketing team to find new clients, and launch custom-made enzyme kits.
Revealing the expansion plan to Silicon Canals, Maria Fátima Lucas, CEO of Zymvol says, “Our plans include growing our presence in the European and North American market, as well as expanding our business with Pharma, and Generics companies.
What does Zymvol solve?
Enzymes are biocatalysts, proteins naturally found in living organisms responsible for “catalysing” (accelerating) millions of chemical reactions.
For decades, various industries have used them to improve the properties of their products (e.g. detergents with better stain-removal power, lactose-free milk, etc), as well as to substitute polluting, traditional catalysts.
However, before they can be used in factories, enzymes must be designed to withstand tough conditions, which traditionally requires months of trial and error, making the process costly and unpredictable.
Here’s where the Spanish company comes into play!
Democratising enzyme development with computational precision
Zymvol has transformed this process with computer simulations that accurately model experiments with 90 per cent accuracy, drastically reducing development time and costs.
“This number (90%) has 2 very significant implications: on one end, we only need to test in the lab a very small set of enzymes saving time and resources in any development; but more importantly 9 out of 10 of our enzyme engineering campaigns are successful. This means that our customers are investing in a complex technology with high chances of success,” says Fátima Lucas.
This approach allows only the best enzyme candidates to be tested.
Additionally, Zymvol can identify new enzymes for specific reactions, even without prior data, supporting projects that seek certain chemical outcomes.
“Even though we have a core computational capability that sets us apart, how we plan to differentiate from companies entering this space is the development of novel enzymes targeting needs that we have previously identified and in this way accelerate, even further, the delivery of enzyme solutions,” she adds.
Keeping it cost-effective
The company partners with R&D teams from some of the world’s largest firms to transform their production processes—boosting innovation and reducing environmental impact—through tailored enzymatic solutions.
According to MarketsandMarkets, the global enzyme market was estimated at $14B in 2024 and is projected to reach $20.4B by 2029 (7.8 per cent CAGR).
Amid this trend, the Spanish company aims to ensure that its computational enzyme discovery solutions remain cost-effective and scalable as it expands its client base.
“We are building the most proficient enzyme library powered by our computer simulations,” she adds.
The company is also working on an end-to-end platform designed to streamline all aspects of biocatalysis for its clients.
“One of the biggest challenges in biocatalysis is its multi-disciplinary nature: it’s highly complex, high risk, and requires a lot of expertise to navigate. For those without prior experience, getting involved in this type of project can be daunting. Our goal is to bring clarity to this process by creating a reliable platform that tackles many of the most common biocatalysis challenges, helping companies in their journey to re-design their industrial processes for the better,” adds Fátima Lucas.
Zymvol’s approach to enzyme adoption
Zymvol tackles the challenge of educating industries unfamiliar with enzyme-based solutions by focusing on — transparency, accessibility, and risk reduction.
“When a client reaches out to us, we want them to feel that what we do is not a black box,” she explains.
According to Fátima Lucas, transparency is central to client collaborations, starting with a quick pre-assessment to predict the project’s “success rate.”
This assessment helps clients make better decisions and minimises risks in complicated projects.
Additionally, Zymvol aims to reduce barriers by making enzyme development more affordable and less time-consuming.
“As an example, some companies don’t even know if an enzyme can get the job done. So, we took a tool we developed for internal use, called zymscan, and made it available to the entire market free of cost,” she explains.
This alone saves people time in literature reading and money in experts and empowers customers to take the first steps in enzyme development.
The tool helps businesses save time, and avoid costly expert consultations, enabling them to take their first steps into enzyme development.
Clients, success rates, and more
To date, the Barcelona-based company has completed more than 100 projects spanning diverse sectors, primarily in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, collaborating with global clients such as Axplora, Medichem, and Sanofi.
On measuring clients’ success rate, she states, “Each project is very different, so there’s no “one-fits-all” metric, take enzyme discovery, for example, it’s very easy to determine if we’ve been successful: first there was no enzyme solution and then there’s an enzyme that can perform the target chemical reaction.”
“In Enzyme Engineering projects, metrics depend on the target industrial goal that the customer needs to achieve. Is the enzyme sufficiently efficient, selective, and stable? These metrics are provided by the customers and are clear from day one,” she concludes.
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