Arsenale Bioyards has raised $10 million in seed financing to support its efforts in reducing biomanufacturing costs and accelerating industrial-scale adoption of bio-based alternatives. The funding round was led by Planet A and byFounders, with additional participation from CDP Ventures, Acequia Capital, Plug and Play, Gray Silo Ventures, and several industrial family offices.
The company focuses on optimizing precision fermentation, a process that utilizes microorganisms such as yeast or bacteria to produce proteins and other compounds. While this technology has been widely applied in pharmaceuticals, its expansion into food and cosmetics has been constrained by high production costs. Arsenale’s end-to-end biomanufacturing platform integrates industrial-scale bioreactors with AI-driven software to reduce costs and time-to-market, with the company projecting cost reductions of up to 90%.
Scaling from lab to industrial production
The newly secured funding will support the expansion of Arsenale’s infrastructure, with a focus on applications in food and cosmetics. The company operates a pilot site with 1,000L of precision fermentation capacity, including two 500L bioreactors and a network of smaller bioreactors equipped with industry-first sensing capabilities. This facility serves as a testbed for scaling fermentation processes from laboratory to industrial production.
According to Christoph Gras, co-founder and general partner at Planet A Ventures, “By making production cost-competitive and standardized, Arsenale turns biomanufacturing into an investable asset class while enabling industries to move away from animal- and petrochemical-derived products at scale.”
AI-driven bioreactor networks
Arsenale’s Bioyards system utilizes modular industrial bioreactors designed for cost-effective scaling. Unlike traditional methods that focus on scaling up individual units, Arsenale’s approach scales out production through distributed bioreactor networks. The company’s proprietary AI models collect and process real-time data, optimizing fermentation parameters and reducing reliance on conventional trial-and-error methods. This approach is intended to lower both operational (OPEX) and capital expenditures (CAPEX) while increasing production efficiency.
“By making production cost-competitive and standardized, Arsenale turns biomanufacturing into an investable asset class”
Arsenale’s leadership team includes professionals with backgrounds in biotech, AI, and industrial scaling. CEO Massimo Portincaso previously co-founded and exited Officinae Bio and was a partner at BCG. CSO Gordana Djordjevic has over 25 years of experience in precision fermentation, having held leadership positions at Perfect Day, Zymergen, and BASF. CTO Niels Lynge Agerbæk, formerly of Zymergen and Novo Nordisk, oversees technical implementation, while CIO Matteo Zanotto, an AI specialist, leads the company’s software innovation efforts. COO Arnaud Legris, an engineer and former BCG consultant, manages operational execution.
Massimo Portincaso, CEO and co-founder of Arsenale Bioyards states, “Arsenale is not just imagining the bio-economy of the future—we are building it today, with operational facilities and proprietary technology. This funding reinforces our ability to drive measurable change and underscores our aspiration to build a new generative, biology-driven industrial paradigm.”
