Molecular Assemblies Closes Oversubscribed $24 Million Series A Financing

Molecular Assemblies, Inc. closed an oversubscribed $24 million series A financing with significant investment from Agilent Technologies, Inc., iSelect Fund Management LLC, Codexis, Inc., Alexandria Venture Investments LLC, and Argonautic Ventures.

In addition, LYFE Capital has joined the syndicate.

The proceeds of the financing will be used to advance the company’s proprietary enzymatic DNA synthesis technology toward early commercialization efforts.

“We have made significant progress in advancing our proprietary enzymatic DNA synthesis technology,” said Michael J. Kamdar, president and CEO. “Over the past year, we’ve entered into a transformative partnership with Codexis and joined a new project with GE Research to enable the production of nucleic acid-based vaccines and therapeutics, anywhere in the world. We are delighted to have closed our series A and are rapidly advancing our efforts towards early commercial access.“

“Enzymatic DNA synthesis holds the potential to revolutionize many industries, including life sciences, DNA-based storage, and advanced agricultural and industrial products,” said Sameer Rohatgi, venture partner, LYFE Capital. “With Molecular Assemblies’ proprietary technology and approach, we saw not only their ability to serve a billion-dollar commercial market, but also to be the DNA ‘ink’ in any genomics printer.”

Synthetic DNA is used in a range of applications, including life science research, biologic therapeutics and diagnostics, storage, nanotechnology, and industrial processes for agriculture, plastics, fermentation, and bio-materials, such as leather or spider silk.

However, the potential of synthetic DNA has not been realized due to the cumbersome process of chemical DNA synthesis. The current, 3-decade-old method for chemically synthesizing DNA is inherently limited to relatively short DNA sequences, requires extensive post-synthesis processing, and uses hazardous chemicals.

“We have supported Molecular Assemblies over several years and are very with impressed the progress they have made,” said Darlene Solomon, Ph.D., SVP and CTO, Agilent. “The cost-effective production of ever-lengthening strands of DNA will fuel even greater opportunities for nucleic acid driven innovation and contribution across numerous industries.”

John Nicols, Codexis’ president and CEO, adds: “Codexis and Molecular Assemblies have delivered substantial enzymatic synthesis improvements already in the short time since the collaboration was established in June of last year. Codexis’ engineered enzyme performance continues to accelerate and is well on its way to reach the milestones required to differentiate vs. the industry standard phosphoramidite chemistry method. It’s great to be enabling the enzymatic DNA synthesis revolution together with Molecular Assemblies.“

Scientists at Molecular Assemblies have pioneered a 2-step enzymatic DNA synthesis process that can deliver highly-pure, sequence-specific DNA on demand, without a template, and can scale to longer DNA sequences. This proprietary process uses aqueous, non-toxic reagents and requires minimal post-synthesis purification and processing. Enzymatic DNA synthesis can overcome the significant limitations of phosphoramidite chemistry and enable the cost-effective production of ever-lengthening strands of DNA.