Australian startup Cauldron has received A$4.3 million (US$2.8 million) from the Australian Department of Industry, Science and Resources’ Industry Growth Program (IGP) to help build a manufacturing platform that will enable its partners to more efficiently produce high-quality ingredients through precision fermentation in a continuous process.

Other recipients of IGP grants include Forager Automation, which is developing a robotic harvester for harvesting delicate fresh produce, and Li–S Energy, which has developed “lighter, cleaner and more environmentally friendly” lithium-sulfur batteries that are said to deliver more than twice the energy density of lithium-ion batteries.

Cauldron operates a 25,000-litre demonstration plant in New South Wales and believes that a continuous (rather than discontinuous) ‘hyperfermentation’ process will be the key to making microbial fermentation commercially viable for a wide range of ingredients previously derived from animal or petrochemical sources.

In a traditional batch process, microbes multiply until they reach a critical mass in a fermentation tank. Then, by changing the medium, they are stimulated to start producing a target molecule. The batch is then completed, the ingredient is extracted, the tank is cleaned, and the whole process starts again.

However, Cauldron has found a way to keep microbes in a productive state and then funnel them into auxiliary tanks where they begin expressing target molecules. The company was able to successfully run a 10,000-liter production system continuously for more than eight months without encountering contamination or “genetic drift,” two major challenges in conducting long-term fermentation.

Because the process does not require large fermenters, it can reduce both variable and fixed costs and deliver more product per dollar of investment, says the company, which just appointed experienced biotech industry expert (Solugen, BASF, Verenium Corp) Dr. David Weiner as CTO.

“Smaller, smarter plants with significantly lower capital investment”

Weiner, who lives in San Diego, California, said AgFunderNews that for Cauldron, which has global ambitions, it makes sense to have someone in the U.S. “There’s a lot of super cool technology in the biomanufacturing space. The biggest hurdles are production costs and scalability. So I’m excited to unlock that potential with hyperfermentation because that’s really going to give this industry a boost.”

He added: “There is a lot of work going on in directed evolution to improve both enzymes and metabolic pathways as well as production strains (of microbial hosts used in bioproduction), but one keeps running into the challenge of scaling up.

“This is what excites me about working at Cauldron, as the company has a wealth of knowledge and expertise (it was founded in early 2023 from the assets of contract research and development provider Agritechnology, where Cauldron co-founder Michele Stansfield had worked for 10 years) and we have already achieved the scale required.”

Stansfield, who in March announced a A$9.5 million (US$6.25 million) Series A funding round led by Horizons Ventures, said: “We are working with six demo-scale customers (including designer fats company Nourish Ingredients, animal-free dairy company Eden Brew and biomaterials company ULUU), including companies in the fuel precursor space. We also have interest from specialty chemicals, egg protein, fiber and established food manufacturers looking to strengthen their supply chains.

“For our dairy customer, we have already undercut the cost per kilo that would be incurred in a 500,000 litre batch fermentation, and this at a very early stage, and further optimization is still to come.”

The next step is to build larger facilities in Australia and possibly the US, said Stansfield, which is currently conducting a second round of funding and says it is exploring opportunities that require a “significant” amount of non-dilutive funding from regional or national governments.

She added: “There is no significant market for ‘premium green’ proteins, but bringing the cost of goods down to $15-$20 per kilo is the leverage this industry needs. We’re talking about building smaller, smarter plants with much less capital.”

Watch our recent interview with Michele Stansfield at the Asia-Pacific Agri-Foods Innovation Summit in Singapore: