Finnish startup Onego Bio Ltd raises Eur 10 million in seed funding to commercialize a breakthrough technology to produce egg white without chickens

摘要

The Finnish biotech startup Onego Bio Ltd has announced the successful closure of Eur 10 million seed round with participation from venture capital investors Agronomics Limited and Maki VC. Onego Bio's technology, developed and researched at VTT, enables production of bioalbumen with cellular agriculture means. Bioalbumen is an animal-free egg protein, produced with a specific precision fermentation process that creates identical egg white protein without the need for animals. The company believes that the demand for animal-free egg white protein will be growing globally, because intensive animal farming causes many environmental hazards, such as excessive use of land, greenhouse gas emissions, water scarcity, and the risk of global pandemics. "We want to thank VTT and our investors for supporting a technology that is part of a bigger wave of changing people's perspective on alternative ways of producing food. The time is right to spin out this technology and start manufacturing our product, as consumers are more open to try products that are not animal-derived," says Maija Itkonen, CEO of Onego Bio Ltd.