gas-fermentation
(3)
Calysta
Calysta is a San Mateo, California biotechnology company that uses a patented gas-fermentation platform to turn methane into FeedKind, a single-cell protein for aquaculture, livestock and pet feed - and increasingly human food. Its bacteria eat natural gas instead of arable land, plants or animals, producing protein with a low environmental footprint. Backed by Cargill, BP and Temasek and partnered with Adisseo through the Calysseo joint venture, Calysta opened the world's first industrial-scale single-cell protein plant in Chongqing, China in 2022.
Circe
Circe (Circe Bioscience) is a Boston-based climate biotech company that engineers microbes to eat carbon dioxide and build valuable molecules - fats, oils, sugars, plastics and fuels - using only CO2, water and electricity. Spun out of Harvard's Wyss Institute in 2021, its gas-fermentation platform consumes roughly 3 kilograms of CO2 for every kilogram of oil it produces, making the process carbon-negative. The company has made the world's first chocolate using fermentation-derived cocoa butter and, in September 2024, raised a $5M seed round to open a pilot plant in Waltham, Massachusetts.
Industrial Microbes (iMicrobes)
Industrial Microbes (iMicrobes) is an Alameda, California synthetic-biology company that engineers programmable microbes to turn renewable, low-carbon feedstocks - primarily ethanol and methane - into drop-in chemicals and materials such as 100% bio-based acrylic acid, acrylonitrile and carbon fiber precursors. Founded in 2014, the company aims to give chemical producers and consumer brands a cost-competitive, lower-carbon alternative to petrochemicals, and has scaled its bioprocess to a pilot bioreactor producing 10+ kg per run.