Bota Bio Announces Close Of $100 Million Series B Financing Round

(VCBeat) July. 29, 2021 -- Bota Biosciences ("Bota Bio") announced that it has raised more than $100 million in Series B funding round. This financing was led by Sequoia Capital China, with participation from China Merchant Bank International Capital and previous round investors Matrix Partners China, Sherpa Healthcare Partners, Source Code Capital, 5Y Capital, Meituan and so on. This brings Bota Bio's total funding to more than $145 million, setting a record for the speed and size of funding in the field of synthetic biology in Asia.

Founded in 2019, Bota Bio is dedicated to exploring new technologies for the traditional chemical manufacturing industry to produce sustainable media in an efficient and environmentally friendly manner. The founding team of Bota Bio has deep experience in the development, scale production and marketing of media. The company has developed a highly integrated and automated technology platform called Bota Freeway, which enables multiple product pipelines to be developed in parallel at high speeds.

Combining advanced digital tools with laboratory automation, Bota Freeway integrates and optimizes enzymes, strains and production processes with computing at its core and foundation. At the same time, the platform can efficiently complete the design-build-test-learn cycle of synthetic biology, shorten the iteration cycle by 50%, and further cover downstream process development and the modification of non-traditional engineered microbial strains.

Sequoia Capital China, as the "entrepreneur behind entrepreneur", focuses on investment in four directions including technology/media, healthcare, consumer goods/modern services and industrial technology. Over the past 15 years, Sequoia Capital China has invested in nearly 600 enterprises with distinctive technical characteristics, innovative business models, and high growth and development potential.

Matrix Partners China builds long-term relationships with entrepreneurs and helps them build significant industry-leading companies. Since its inception in 1977, Matrix Partners China has made hundreds of investments and played an active role in the development of many successful businesses, 50 of which went on to IPO, and 75 of which have gone on to profitable M&A events. Its past successes include Focus Media, Eachnet, and Baidu, among others. The company invests across multiple sectors and stages.