The iGEM Blog — iGEM Blog

Aug 18

Aug 18 Highlights of the 2026 Venture Creation Lab

iGEM Innovation aims to support bioinnovators to turn their innovations into lasting impact. Through the Venture Creation Lab (VCL), early-stage teams are introduced to the practical foundations of building a synthetic biology venture from a research background, covering everything from customer discovery to commercialisation.

Aug 17

Aug 17 Why Techno-Economic Analysis Matters for Your Venture and the Founder Traits That Get Funded in Biotech

Carolina Villa spent a decade scaling bioprocesses in industry: first at DSM, the Dutch multinational known for its fermentation and biotechnology work, then at CJ CheilJedang, a South Korean food and biotechnology company and one of the world's largest producers of fermentation-based bioproducts. She has since moved to the investor side, where she's now a Principal at Nucleus Capital, supporting pre-seed to early-stage deeptech climate startups.

Aug 3

Aug 3 From Funding Startups to Running One: Pedro Lovatt Garcia's Bioentrepreneurship Story

Meet Pedro Lovatt Garcia, Co-Founder and CTO of tera, previously known as Anzen Industries, a cell-free biomanufacturing startup that recently closed its £2.2M pre-seed funding round from leading European venture capital (VC) firms. This fundraise marks a significant milestone for tera as it prepares for its next phase of growth in the United States.

Apr 29

Apr 29 The 2026 iGEM Startups BioHackathon: Your First Step Into the World of BioEntrepreneurship

On March 27–29, the 2026 edition of the iGEM Startups BioHackathon brought together 330 participants across 30 teams for a weekend of ideation, collaboration and pitching.

Feb 4

Feb 4 Science, Impact and Scale: Cyrille Pauthenier on Building a Sustainable Biotech Future with Abolis Biotechnologies

Audrey Budiman

Cyrille Pauthenier is the CEO and Co-founder of Abolis Biotechnologies, a firm based in Paris that focuses on industrial biotechnology and advancing sustainable bioproduction through microbial fermentation and strain engineering.

Dec 11

Dec 11 From Puerto Varas to the World: Interview with Manuel Rozas, CSO of Kura Biotech

Meet Manuel Rozas, an emblematic figure in Chile's scientific innovation ecosystem. As the founder of Kura Biotech, he has positioned his company as one of the pioneers in biotechnological enzyme production in Latin America, transforming his passion for science into a global enterprise that sells to the world's leading toxicology laboratories.

Nov 19

Nov 19 Celebrating the Next Generation of Biofounders: Highlights from the 2025 Startup Showcase

A total of 45 teams participated in the Venture Foundry Program, alongside 25 teams in the 2025 Fast-Track Program and 24 kiosks showcased at the BioInnovation Fair. This year marked a milestone for our Startup Showcase, featuring a cohort rich in innovation and global talent. Many teams have already filed or are in the process of filing patents. A total of over $200K in funding has been secured. Teams represented regions from across the world.

Sep 11

Sep 11 Inside the 2025 iGEM Startups Cohort: Sector Distribution, Key Trends and Highlights

Matilde Scotti

Every year, iGEM startups is dedicated to supporting aspiring BioFounders to explore entrepreneurship, and bridge the gap between ideas and impact within synthetic biology projects. Through the Venture Foundry program, our aim is to engage with scientists and introduce concepts of entrepreneurship and commercialisation in a research-driven context.

Sep 10

Sep 10 Building the Future of Automated Bio Labs: Key Lessons from ProviGenAI’s Biofounders

One of the standout startups in this year’s VCL 2025 Cohort comes from TU Munich (Technical University of Munich): Lucas Mair and Magdalena Lang, two medical school students who are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to tackle one of the industry’s biggest pain points: inefficient lab workflows. Through their startup, Provigen.AI, they’re not only streamlining experimental processes, but also showing how the next generation of student biofounders is thinking, building, and scaling a biotech startup.

Sep 3

Sep 3 Shumvobi Mitra’s Perspective: RhizeUP - From iGEM Project to Real-World Impact

iGEM Community, iGEM Startups

My name is Shumvobi Mitra and I am currently both a high school student and the founder of RhizeUP, a startup based in Maryland in the United States. I first got involved with iGEM in 2023 with the iGEM Team East Coast BioCrew. What started as a competition project has now grown into RhizeUP, a startup tackling fertilizer runoff and supporting sustainable agriculture.

Sep 1

Sep 1 A Weekend Inspiring Future Entrepreneurs - Summer School 2025

Every year, the iGEM Startups Summer School brings together iGEM teams from across the globe for two days of workshops, panel discussions, case studies and networking. This year, we were joined by 251 participants belonging to 110 iGEM teams (Figure 1).

This was a great opportunity for aspiring 2025 iGEM teams to explore their entrepreneurial potential and the possibility of winning the Best Entrepreneurship Prize at the iGEM Competition!

Aug 28

Aug 28 In Conversation with Shumvobi Mitra: High School Biofounder Wins $50,000 USD Grant to Fight Fertilizer Runof

Meet Shumvobi Mitra, a high school founder of RhizeUP based in Maryland, in the United States. She began her journey with iGEM Team East Coast BioCrew 2023, engineering rhizobia bacteria to combat fertilizer runoff and protect waterways. After the iGEM Competition, she joined the 2024 iGEM Startups Venture Foundry Program to officially launch RhizeUP.

Aug 20

Aug 20 From the iGEM Competition to xyna.bio: Adrian Romberg’s Journey

For many iGEMers, the competition is more than just a project showcase, it’s a launchpad to the next step in their synthetic biology journey. The people you meet, the roles you take on and the networks you build can take you into the many corners of the field, including the startup ecosystem.

At the 2024 iGEM Grand Jamboree, we caught up with Adrian Romberg, formerly working in Product Management at xyna.bio, a startup based in Mainz, Germany, focused on making powerful computation tools and bioinformatics intuitive and accessible.

Jun 26

Jun 26 From Idea to Impact: Highlights from the 2025 Venture Creation Labs

Matilde Scotti

The 2025 Venture Creation Lab (VCL), held from April 21st to May 16th, hosted by iGEM Startups, brought together aspiring biotech entrepreneurs from around the world to take their first concrete steps toward building a synthetic biology startup. Following the momentum of the BioHackathon, the VCL provided a four-week program designed to turn early ideas into viable venture concepts through lectures, workshops and personalized mentorship.

Apr 30

Apr 30 Understanding Impact Investing and Navigating as Early-Stage BioTech Entrepreneurs: Insights from Jonty Corrin

Jonty Corrin started his career in academia as a bioscientist, but his entrepreneurial journey began during his final year of undergraduate work. While his first startup didn’t thrive, it sparked a passion for early-stage startups and their growth. Along the way, he connected with Nucleate UK, a student-led, nonprofit organization that helps early-stage biotech founders translate academic research into real-world startups with dynamic support.

Apr 17

Apr 17 The 2025 BioHackathon: Your First Step Into the World of BioEntrepreneurship

Matilde Scotti

Apr 4

Apr 4 Stephanie Michelsen, Co-Founder and CEO of Jellatech: How Her iGEM Experience Helped Her Build Jellatech

Audrey Budiman

Stephanie Michelsen, founder and CEO of Jellatech, started her journey as a student participating at the iGEM Competition in 2018 with the University of Copenhagen. Fast forward to 2021, she founded Jellatech, a biotech startup producing high-value human proteins using synthetic biology, based in the United States.

Mar 27

Mar 27 A Cell Biologist Turned Co-Founder: Gregory Segala’s Journey with FluoSphera is Set to Revolutionize Drug Discovery