ADM invests in Acies Bio
Summary
ADM, a global leader in nutrition and agricultural origination and processing, announced Oct. 22 that it is making a leading equity investment in Acies Bio, a Slovenia-based biotechnology company specializing in R&D and manufacturing services for developing and scaling synthetic biology and precision fermentation technologies for food, agriculture and industrial applications. “We’re propelling growth opportunities by working with innovators who appreciate our unique combination of expertise, capacity and access to feedstocks. Now, by investing to become a minority owner in Acies Bio, we’re opening up the door to new collaboration with an innovative, complementary business to meet the growing demand for products developed via microbial fermentation.” Founded in 2006, Acies Bio develops innovative, proprietary microbial and synthetic biology-based platforms and technologies and also offers contract R&D services in microbial strain engineering and fermentation for customers in key growth segments, including sustainable agriculture, functional foods and biobased industrial chemicals. “Acies Bio’s core mission is to use the nearly unlimited power of microbial diversity to drive disruptive innovation and help create a more sustainable bio-based future,” said Enej Kuščer, Acies Bios co-founder and director. “This strategic partnership with ADM will allow Acies Bio to expand and accelerate the development of our platform technologies, which aim to replace synthetic chemicals and the often carbon-intensive production currently used in food and agriculture with microbial, bio-based products.” “This investment from ADM will also allow Acies Bio to expand our infrastructure and increase the high-throughput capabilities of our SmartRoute platform, which will allow faster development of new technologies and products,” said Štefan Fujs, Acies Bios co-founder and director.