Anthrogen (YC S24)

New office at Anthrogen (YC S24)! It will be home to our protein foundation model and robotic development projects. Super excited for this new space to compliment our wet lab and for the next chapter at Anthrogen. Looking for fantastic AI scientists and roboticists that want to help us build the next generation of foundation models/high-throughput experimental platforms for biology and clean manufacturing! Benefits include a great espresso machine, amazing natural light, and immediate real-world impact. We work long hours on some of the world’s hardest research questions and are extremely mission oriented. Shoot us a note at [email protected] if that sounds like your jam. PS: Shout out to Connor Lee and Vignesh Karthik for preparing a great hotpot housewarming dinner!

We’re delighted to announce Anthrogen (YC S24)'s partnership with Stanford University's renowned Fordyce Lab to advance enzyme discovery and protein engineering. The Fordyce Lab specializes in microfluidic assay development—driving down costs to acquire high-quality data for the next generation of generative Bio AI models. By integrating their microfluidics expertise with our robotics and large protein language model work, we aim to reduce the costs and complexity of measuring enzyme kinetics—often a bottleneck in research and biomanufacturing. This work will enable larger, high-quality datasets, accelerating innovation in the generative Bio AI space with applications across synthetic biology and in the cell-free system Anthrogen is developing. Read more about how we plan to streamline enzyme analysis in our latest blog post! https://lnkd.in/eGGTi3cq We're pursuing this avenue in tandem with our current plate-reading approach to ensure data production stability. We looking for super talented people to work on this and other really cool bench-based and computational work—send an email to [email protected] with a resume and a couple sentences on the most fulfilling project you've worked on. Would love to chat! Huge thank you to Polly Fordyce and Byungjin Lee for their collaboration for this project!

We're hiring! Anthrogen (YC S24) is looking for a founding scientist in structural biology/biophysics particularly with a focus on high-throughput systems/ microfluidics. At Anthrogen, we are designing de novo enzymes to turn our supply chains carbon negative and to do that we need data--we're a small team and are looking for someone who is as excited about research and our mission as we are. If this sounds like you, shoot over your resume to [email protected] and we'll be in touch! If this sounds like someone you know, send this to them! For more info, check our the job description here: https://lnkd.in/e3szPZFk

In an era of constant digital updates, we've grown accustomed to transforming software with a simple tap—redesigning apps, enhancing features, and reshaping digital experiences almost instantaneously. What if the same principle of programmability could be applied to something far more fundamental: the living organisms that might help solve our climate crisis? Anthrogen (YC S24) is setting out to do just that. Using CRISPR technology and advanced protein language models, these Columbia University founders have developed photosynthetic microorganisms that can be rapidly reconfigured to produce different chemicals with unprecedented flexibility. Their genetically engineered bacteria represent a new paradigm of biological design—capable of switching from producing methane for sustainable aviation fuel to creating polymers or industrial chemicals through what is essentially a genetic "software update." Backed by a $4M seed round and investors like Y Combinator, Anthrogen is positioning itself at the critical intersection of carbon capture and biochemical engineering You can find the full deep-dive and analysis below. https://lnkd.in/g63nkArG

Fresh off the heels of last week's $4M seed funding announcement in Axios, we sat down with Shared Future Fund portfolio founders Ankit Singhal, Vignesh Karthik and Connor Lee to talk about their AI-powered process of turning CO2 into chemicals 🧪 Their obsession with cost - combined with what they believe to be the most natural application of AI - truly sets them apart within the field of startups working on bio-based production of industrial chemicals. 👇 Read more about what they’re up to on the SFF blog: https://lnkd.in/eiPTRu_9 CC: Collaborative Fund

Thank you Katie Fehrenbacher for the coverage of our $4M seed round in Axios! https://lnkd.in/e-mgcV8q

Anthrogen (YC S24) is engineering photosynthesizing bacteria and cascading their enzymatic outputs for low-cost, scalable, and carbon-negative polymer manufacturing. Put simply, they want to turn carbon dioxide from the air into useful carbon polymers. Chemical production is famously incredibly carbon intensive, with crude oil as the primary feedstock. High-quality carbon capture technologies are also prohibitively expensive, with current state-of-the-art solutions costing >$1000/ton. By unifying these two processes, Anthrogen hopes both will take in CO2 from the air while decarbonizing the supply chain to tackle climate change at the root issue. Founded by Ankit Singhal, Vignesh Karthik, and Connor Lee, Anthrogen has engineered the fastest photosynthesizing organism in the world with CRISPR and uses generative models to design their enzymatic cascades. They're starting with starch as the quintessential polymer but will expand to other verticals soon. Congrats to the team on the launch! 🚀 https://lnkd.in/gN2sxRAm

Y Combinator S24 has begun! Retreat last weekend was great - happy to share Arctic Capture (YC S24) won the title of "Most Likely to Succeed" startup. Does this mean much? Probably not. It's exciting and validating to have this happen but we are still super early in the process. Most startups will be unrecognizable during demo day compared to last weekend. This is a good thing! It's why we joined YC in the first place. The intensity of the work and the warmth of the community is unlike any other environment and enables all of us to grow in some unexpected ways. That being said, winning is always fun 🎉 Read more at our blog here: https://lnkd.in/eq7GvJq3