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# Lithuania’s Biomatter Raises €16.2M Series A to Design Enzymes Not Found in Nature
- URL: https://www.therecursive.com/lithuanias-biomatter-raises-eur16-2m-series-a-to-design-enzymes-not-found-in-nature/
- Published: 2026-11-12T11:39:24.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-12T11:39:24.000Z
- Description: Vilnius-based Biomatter has raised €16.2M ($18M) in a Series A led by Astanor. The money will go into a new enzyme design and testing facility in Vilnius and a bigger push into the US.
- Author: Yoana Stanislavova

Vilnius-based [Biomatte](https://biomatter.ai/?ref=therecursive.com)r, which uses AI to design enzymes, has raised an oversubscribed €16.2 million ($18 million) Series A. The round was led by **Astanor**, with existing investors UVC Partners, Inventure and Metaplanet also taking part.

Founded in 2018, Biomatter **designs enzymes by starting from the chemical reaction a customer needs**, instead of modifying an enzyme that already exists in nature. The company has built its own enzyme dataset, which it says goes well beyond what is found in nature, and every design is tested in the lab before it ships.

## Customers across biopharma, diagnostics and agriculture

So far, Biomatter has delivered more than 50 custom enzymes to over 25 enterprise customers in Europe, the US and Japan. Its clients include **AstraZeneca, BASF, Kirin Holdings, Neogen, Sanofi and Tereos**, and they work across biopharma, diagnostics, agriculture and industrial biotech. About half of the customers are based in the US.

One of its better-known projects was with **Thermo Fisher Scientific**, where Biomatter helped improve the oxidation resistance of the Invitrogen SuperScript V reverse transcriptase. The enzyme can now be shipped at ambient temperature and stored at room temperature for up to six months. In another program, the company developed a methylase for mRNA vaccine manufacturing that works without SAM, an additive natural methylases need.

## A new facility in Vilnius

**Most of the new money will go into a 2,000 m² design and testing facility** in Vilnius, scheduled to open in 2027\. Biomatter wants to bring more of its build-and-test work in-house there. According to the company, conventional enzyme development takes months or even years, its own programs take weeks, and the new facility should bring that **down to days**.

Biomatter also plans to **grow its commercial team**, expand its presence in the US and keep investing in its computational platform and dataset.

> “Our goal is to make a custom enzyme as easy to order as a catalog product.” 

— said **Laurynas Karpus**, CEO and co-founder of Biomatter. He added that the funding will let the company design enzymes at a larger scale and get them to customers faster.

## Oversubscribed

Astanor, which led the round, is a Brussels-based investor founded in 2017 that backs agrifood and bioeconomy companies. It [closed its second venture fund at €360 million in 2023](https://sifted.eu/articles/astanor-agrifood-e360m-fund?ref=therecursive.com). The other investors in the Series A have backed Biomatter before: UVC Partners and Inventure co-led its [€6.5 million seed round in August 2024](https://www.uvcpartners.com/blog/biomatter-raises-a-eu6-5-million-seed-round-to-unlock-the-power-of-generative-ai-for-enzyme-design?ref=therecursive.com), which Metaplanet and Practica Capital also joined.

UVC Partners put more money into the company this time. Partner Oliver Schoppe said the firm increased its investment because Biomatter’s enzymes are already sold commercially and the company is ahead of many other startups applying AI to biology.

For **Harry Briggs**, Partner at Astanor, the company’s data was a key reason to lead the round.

> “Biomatter has spent years generating data beyond nature, which allows them to design enzymes that never evolved,” he said. 

Briggs also pointed to large customers coming back to Biomatter for repeat projects.