Manchester techbio spin-out Imperagen has secured £5m in seed funding to scale an AI-powered enzyme engineering platform born out of research at The University of Manchester.
The round was led by PXN Ventures, with backing from existing investors IQ Capital and Northern Gritstone, taking the company’s total funding to £8.5m.
Founded by University of Manchester researchers Dr Andrew Almond, Dr Andrew Currin and Dr Tim Eyes in 2021, Imperagen is aiming to design industrial enzymes that actually work in real-world conditions.
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Its platform combines quantum physics simulations, AI modelling and automated robotics in a closed-loop system designed to speed up and improve enzyme engineering for sectors ranging from pharmaceuticals and personal care to sustainable chemicals manufacturing.
The company said traditional enzyme engineering methods remain slow, expensive and heavily reliant on manual screening, while many newer “zero-shot” AI approaches struggle once deployed outside the lab.
Imperagen’s system instead continuously feeds experimental data back into its AI models, allowing them to improve with every testing round. The company described the platform as “the future of biocatalysis” and said its recursive, self-improving AI system could help “rewrite chemical reactions”.
The business claims the approach has already delivered major gains in commercial projects, including work with a Fortune 500 personal care company where the productivity of two enzymes improved by 677x and 572x respectively in just five rounds of testing.
Alongside the funding announcement, Imperagen has appointed Guy Levy-Yurista as CEO. The life sciences and deep tech executive has previously overseen two successful exits across the US and Europe.
Commenting on the appointment, Dr Levy-Yurista said: “What I see right now is that the companies that will make a radical difference in this emerging AI-driven future are all AI-native, lean on real world data, have genuine impact, and are fundamentally deep tech.
“Imperagen has each of those characteristics, combining them with outstanding people, phenomenal technology and the undeniable swagger you only get from Manchester. It was a no-brainer to join the team and lead this next stage in its growth.”
The funding will be used to expand Imperagen’s wet lab operation, grow its in-house AI team and accelerate commercialisation across its target sectors.
Investment came via the GMC Life Sciences Fund by PXN Ventures, alongside NPIF II – PXN Equity Finance through the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II.
Sim Singh-Landa, investment director at PXN, said: “The North West’s life sciences ecosystem is becoming stronger all the time and stands to gain from Imperagen’s local hiring and growth plans, building on the company’s connection to the University of Manchester’s Manchester Institute of Biotechnology.
“We’re excited to be supporting Imperagen with investment from both the GMC Life Sciences Fund and the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II as the company looks to scale success in enzyme engineering and deliver progress within the life sciences sector, which is one of the key sectors highlighted in the UK Government’s Modern Industrial Strategy.”
