This Lithuanian startup raises €500K to develop AI for generative protein design

Vilnius startup Biomatter Designs claims to pioneer the technologies for generative protein design. In a recent development, the company has raised nearly half a million euros from a slew of investors. The company will be able to generate novel enzymes and protein therapeutics that would otherwise be tedious to obtain by classical experimental and computational approaches.

Investment to develop product pipeline

Well, Biomatter Designs just announced that it raised €500k led by Practica Capital along with 70V and angel investors. This fund will be used to develop the company’s protein design technology and product pipeline further.

“We are very excited to back this bold and long-term vision of Biomatter Designs. The interdisciplinary approach combined with a strong and proven Lithuanian academic and industrial experience in protein engineering, also adding new abilities of AI can lead to unprecedented outcomes. The potential is truly vast”, says Donatas Keras, Partner at Practica Capital.

“70V is glad to have the opportunity to invest in ambitious A-grade talent like Laurynas and his team. We see enormous potential for Biomatter Designs and are excited to be able to help with going to market and accelerating the team’s expertise in enterprise sales,” says Per Moller, Managing Partner at 70V.

Significance of protein engineering!

Proteins are complex and large molecules that drive every biological function virtually. Naturally occurring proteins and biochemical reactions enable transportation of materials within the cell, transduction of chemical signals and other crucial roles. When proteins are engineered to carry out specific functions, these have a great potential to resolve some of the biggest challenges faced by humanity across food, agriculture, healthcare and other industries.

What does Biomatter Designs do?

In an attempt to resolve these challenges and accelerate the tedious and resource-intensive process of protein engineering, Biomatter Designs has developed a platform driven by machine learning. This platform is meant for the next-generation computational protein design. It analyses vast amounts of natural protein data in order to learn the complex rules involved in governing the proteins’ functions. Later, the knowledge that is acquired will be used to design new protein molecules.

“Our company is striving to shift the paradigm in protein engineering” – says Laurynas Karpus, the founder and CEO of Biomatter Designs. “We are moving from classical protein discovery process to well-predictable computational protein design. Classical methods often resemble searching for a needle in the haystack – looking for the right answer in already existing or similar molecules. This takes a great amount of time and requires loads of expensive and time-consuming experimental data. This is where our technology steps in to intelligently augment the protein engineering process, allowing us to generate new proteins right from the first atom. When it comes to solving problems in healthcare or environmental sectors, we can’t afford to waste time.”