Team Startupcity

• Biotech startup Loopworm raises $3.25M in pre-Series A funding led by WaterBridge Ventures and Enrission India Capital.
• Funds to accelerate the commercialization of a silkworm-based recombinant protein platform for diagnostics, animal vaccines, and biomanufacturing.
• Loopworm operates one of Asia’s largest insect processing plants and aims to scale R&D and global supply of insect-derived proteins and lipids.

Loopworm, a startup biotech firm that is creating sustainable protein production platforms based on farmed insects, has raised $3.25 million in a pre-Series A funding round. WaterBridge Ventures and Japanese venture capital firm Enrission India Capital co-led the investment.

The current round comes after a $3.4 million seed round raised earlier from Omnivore and other early investors. The new capital will help drive the commercialization of Loopworm's recombinant protein production platform based on silkworms, with diagnostics, animal vaccines, and other applications having accelerated go-to-market timelines with less regulatory oversight, says Loopworm.

Started by IIT-Roorkee alumni Ankit Alok Bagaria and Abhi Gawri in 2019, Loopworm is pioneering a non-traditional method of biomanufacturing. Silkworms are employed by the startup as "living bioreactors" to manufacture intricate recombinant proteins , a job conventionally performed by genetically engineered microorganisms in costly stainless-steel fermenters.

The startup will utilize the funding to increase production, enlarge R&D collaborations, and speed up time-to-market for its recombinant protein products.

"Recombinant protein production has historically been limited by capital-intensive equipment and gradual scalability," added Bagaria, CEO of the firm. "Our reactor-free technology based on silkworms alters the economics entirely. Having demonstrated the technology, we are now turning our attention to commercialization".

Loopworm's platform has shown effective expression of antigens, growth factors, and other proteins of greater complexity in silkworm pupae. The company is now seeking to expand the system for industrial-grade use in healthcare, veterinary science, and biotechnology industries.

It now owns a 6,000-tonne-per-year insect processing plant in Bengaluru that it says is one of Asia's biggest, from where it supplies insect-based proteins and lipids for aquafeed and pet nutrition use in Europe, South America, and Southeast Asia. Its product line consists of insect-based soluble proteins, collagen, enzymes, and lipids.

"Our silkworm-based platform is well-placed to address these requirements". Ashish Jain of WaterBridge Ventures said, "Loopworm is proof of the leadership position Indian startups can assume in the international biotech space".