Scottish bio-tech company secures £3.4m investment

Scottish biotech engineering company uFraction8 has secured £3.4m in new investment following the completion of a funding round led by Foresight Group.

Based in Falkirk with a fully-owned subsidiary in Poland, uFraction8’s microfiltration technology is designed to optimise cell and biomass production, offering a sustainable, energy-efficient alternative to traditional methods used in the production of food, feed, and bio-based products. By enhancing the scalability and affordability of bioprocessing, the company is focused on addressing critical challenges in the global bio-tech sector.

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The latest investment round also includes funding from University of Edinburgh’s in-house venture investment fund Old College Capital, Scottish Enterprise, Alwyn Capital, Thia Ventures and a grant from the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development.

The funds will be used to further commercialise uFraction8’s technology, originally developed at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering. The company’s innovation provides applications across several key markets, including bio-separation within biopharma which is forecast to grow to $30bn per annum by 2030. The investment capital will also support further technology development to help transform microalgae industry production processes and drastically reduce the cost of products.

Next stage of growth

Co-founded by Dr Brian Miller and Dr Monika Tomecka, uFraction8 currently employs seven people within its business in Scotland and Poznan, Poland. The company secured £2.5m investment in an earlier investment round in 2022 led by Thia Ventures.

Dr Monika Tomecka, Founder and CEO of uFraction8, commented: “We’re thrilled to have secured this significant investment, which will drive forward this next stage of our growth. The support from our investors is a testament to the impact and potential of our innovative technology. These funds will ensure we can bring our solutions to market more rapidly, particularly within the microalgae and biopharma sectors, and enable Fraction8 to continue its innovation within the alternative protein sector.”

Rubina Singh, Senior Investment Manager at Foresight Group added: “We are delighted to be supporting Monika and the uFraction8 team in bringing this breakthrough technology to market. At Foresight, we’re committed to supporting pioneering technologies for a sustainable future. uFraction8’s advancements in continuous bioprocessing present transformative opportunities across multiple industries and we are excited to help the company achieve further impact in their important work.”

Innovative technology

Kerry Sharp, Director of Entrepreneurship and Investment at Scottish Enterprise said: “Scottish Enterprise has supported uFraction8’s ambition over several years to develop and commercialise its highly innovative technology to enable its customers to produce more efficient and scalable manufacturing of bio-based products. The biotech industry is a key opportunity area for growth for Scotland. Companies such as uFraction8 can play a vital role in transforming our economy by scaling-up, creating high value jobs and competing internationally.” 

The uFraction8 group of companies were founded by Dr Monika Tomecka and Dr Brian Miller. uFraction8 develops microfluidics-based filter systems as a solution to help bio-manufacturers to increase their productivity with energy-efficient and scalable perfusion systems. This approach of using hydrodynamic phenomena as a new mechanism of filtration can outcompete conventional systems in key areas. uFraction8 follows BioTech and CleanTech trends and focuses on simplifying industrial processes that use cell cultures for the production of food, bio-pharmaceuticals and other bio-based products and chemicals.

Award-winning company

uFraction8 is a multi-award-winning company recognised for the innovative technology and highly capable team. Awards have come from prestigious international organizations leading the development of new technologies and impactful research such as Horizon 2020, InnovateUK, European Innovation Council, Nature Publications, The Royal Society of Edinburgh and The institute of Chemical Engineers amongst many others.

uFraction8 has a vision to enable the global transition to sustainable bio-based manufacture to help feed, mobilise and maintain the health of people and ecosystems for the security of our future. To achieve this, uFraction8 will aim to build the most efficient and scalable perfusion solutions that have ever existed to solve the problems with processing microbial cell cultures, particularly for microalgae, cultivated meat and biopharmaceutical applications.