Perfect Day, Every Co, Liberation Labs Among Final Winners of US Govt Biomanufacturing Grants

Precision fermentation startups dominate the final round of the US Department of Defense’s first phase of biomanufacturing grants, which will go towards building new facilities in the country.

The US government is betting big on precision fermentation to fuel its biotech revolution, with five of its nine final grants under a manufacturing programme going to future food companies working with this technology.

Perfect Day, The Every Company, Cauldron, Liberation Labs and Checkerspot were among the awardees of the Department of Defense’s Distributed Bioindustrial Manufacturing Program (DBIMP), which looks to advance the national fermentation capacity and boost the defence material supply across food, fuel, fitness, firepower and fabrication.

The latest round of funding marks the end of the first phase of the DBIMP, whose grants will help companies draw up plans to build biomanufacturing facilities on US shores. Follow-on funding of up to $100M is available for companies to construct these plants.

“The next industrial revolution will be a biomanufacturing revolution. DoD is keenly aware of that reality,” said Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defence for research and engineering.

DoD goes big on precision fermentation

Seven of the nine grant winners are working in the food space. Among the precision fermentation companies are California’s The Every Co, which specialises in bioidentical egg proteins for a range of functional foods and performance products. It was awarded $2M by the DoD to conduct a feasibility assessment of a US facility for its two core proteins.

Berkeley-based Perfect Day, the first company to commercialise precision-fermented whey proteins, received $1.24M. Its cow-free whey can be used to supplement military ready-to-eat meals and provide a safe protein source for servicemembers with dairy allergies. It is also working on a sweet protein called brazzein, which is under FDA review.

Fellow Californian startup Checkerspot won the biggest sum of the round ($3.19M) for a facility to produce PFAS-free lubricants and triglyceride oils as food ingredients. The startup employs a microalgae-based precision fermentation process to produce its ingredients.

Meanwhile, Liberation Labs – which has been building a large-scale precision fermentation factory in Richmond, Indiana – bagged a $1.4M award to develop plans to scale up operations at this facility. This, the DoD suggests, would address the need for bioproducts in food, operational fitness, and fabrication.

While these startups are all exclusively based in the states, Australian company Cauldron Ferm was awarded $1.76M to plan a commercial-scale plant in the US. Like its facilities down under, this factory will use hyper-fermentation to produce precision-fermented proteins, fuels and chemicals at lower costs than conventional production methods.

Apart from these companies, Chicago-based Nature’s Fynd nabbed $1.38M from the DoD to plan a facility to grow its fungi-based Fy protein, which can be incorporated into meals for the military. And DSM Nutritional Products received $2.07M for a site that will expand domestic production of omega-3 fatty acids for food, which are increasingly being imported.

Grants will boost manufacturing and support alt-protein startups

This latest funding round has taken the DBIMP’s total investments past $60M, supporting 34 companies. These investments are in response to a 2022 executive order by the Biden-Harris administration, which focuses on advancing the country’s bioeconomy.

“DBIMP’s investment in a diverse set of companies will help transition US bioindustrial manufacturing from the laboratory to a network of large-scale production facilities, able to fortify defence supply chains for critical chemicals and novel materials while positioning the US bioeconomy for surging growth,” said Shyu.

Last year, the DoD added $450M to the public-private biomanufacturing consortium BioMade’s budget. But its impact has also been dampened by lobbying pressure from industry groups and Congress members: the agency has previously rolled back a call for funding applications to develop cultivated meat for military rations, as part of an effort to make the military food system more climate-friendly.

But the weight of its investments under the DBIMP can be seen with The Every Co, which has so far been manufacturing its proteins in Europe and Asia, and will use the capital to expand its production back home.

“Most of our customers require thousands of metric tons of product. This award will allow us to work towards expanding our production capacity to meet their needs,” explained Arturo Elizondo, co-founder and CEO of The Every Co.

“Investing in biomanufacturing will allow the United States to safeguard reliable domestic supply chains, reduce reliance on foreign imports, and establish itself as a leader in food technology, especially in the face of rising global challenges such as food insecurity, zoonotic disease risk, and climate change,” he added.

Other food-focused fermentation startups benefitting from the first phase of DBIMP grants include The Better Meat Co, Air Protein, C16 Biosciences, Onego Bio, and Savor.