Anzen Industries, a UK deeptech startup delivering building blocks of the global chemicals industry, has secured a £1.7 million pre-seed investment. The funding will support the transformation of complex chemical manufacturing and improve industrial supply chain resilience through its biomanufacturing innovation.
The pre-seed round, led by LocalGlobe and Creator Fund, will primarily support Anzen Industries’ shift of its operations to the USA, one of the world’s largest chemical manufacturing markets, where it will build its first manufacturing facility. The company also intends to explore new industrial collaborations and partnerships as it scales.
The move will see Anzen Industries establish its first biomanufacturing facility in California. Once built, the new facility will manufacture high-value, critical molecules used as active ingredients in cosmetic, fragrance, and food products, as well as providing solutions for critical minerals processing.
Co-founded by scientists Amy Locks and Pedro Lovatt Garica, Anzen Industries combines proprietary enzyme reactor technology, immobilisation techniques and AI design to transform the manufacturing of critical molecules. The approach is intended to make complex chemical manufacturing more efficient and cost effective, enabling products to reach market more quickly.
Current high-value chemical manufacturing methods face constraints, including challenges with traditional organic synthesis, reliance on variable plant extraction, and the infrastructure-heavy nature of fermentation. Anzen Industries uses isolated, highly precise, and tunable enzymes for biochemical reactions, allowing reactions to occur outside the cell and enabling more efficient, agile, and lower-cost scaling.
Europe's strong scientific heritage, community and support have allowed us, as science-based founders, to take our breakthrough from scientific discovery to viable commercial venture. As we look to the next stage of our growth, the US offers a more advanced industrial and innovation ecosystem that is ideal for us as we take a critical step in scaling Anzen’s technology globally.
Amy Locks, Co-founder & CEO
We started Anzen Industries because we believe that from first principles the future of manufacturing will be cell-free. If enzymes can be kept robust outside of the cell, we can carry out the same manufacturing reactions at a fraction of the infrastructure, energy and cost. Looking to the future, we envision Anzen Industries leading the market in manufacturing entirely new molecules. Humanity has only tapped 1% of the bioactive molecules produced by nature. AI will be used to discover the other 99% of molecules otherwise hidden in the planet’s biology to develop new products in a range of different industries.
Pedro Lovatt Garica, Co-founder & CTO
At LocalGlobe, we back founders who don’t just spot waves early, but have the courage and technical depth to ride them at full force. Re-industrialisation is one of the defining waves of this decade, and manufacturing is where it breaks hardest. Anzen is re-imagining how critical molecules are made from first principles, bringing resilience, speed and sovereignty back into global supply chains.
Julia Hawkins, Partner at LocalGlobe
AI is dramatically expanding the universe of materials that can be used by industry. And yet - the enzyme - one of nature’s most powerful tools for creation - has been overlooked. Less than 1% of known enzymes are used in industry. There is nobody out there who better understands enzyme design and stabilisation than Amy and Pedro.
Jamie Macfarlane, CEO at Creator Fund
