Generare, a French biotech startup, which discovers next-generation medicines and high-value molecules hiding in soil bacteria, has raised €5 million in seed funding. The investment came from Teampact.ventures, Galion.Exe and EU-backed VIVES Partners. Synbioven, Saras Capital and Better Angle also participated among a host of renowned business angels.
Plans to bring discovery factory to life
The funding will be used to further refine the Generare technology, add to its library of biosynthetic genetic clusters and fund the platform’s pilot to prepare the blueprints for its discovery factory, which will industrialise its approach and technology. The company is also hiring for its engineering and lab team internationally.
Uncovers bacteria from soil
Generare was founded in 2023 by serial entrepreneurs and operators – Guillaume Vandenesch, a biotech engineer who helped scale Hello Tomorrow and Dr Vincent Libis, the co-founder of Abolis Biotechnologies and postdoctoral researcher at Rockefeller University.
The company’s data-driven discovery platform is built on a decade of research into synthetic biology, DNA sequencing, and computational biology. It takes bacteria found in soil and breaks down their genetic code to uncover untapped bioactive molecules, called Natural Products (NPs), at unprecedented speed.
Unique approach to discovery
Instead of targeting specific gene clusters or synthesising compounds one at a time – a common, yet slow, expensive and constrained method – Generare is using shotgun cloning to break thousands of genomes into millions of random fragments. These fragments can each be cloned and analysed, in parallel, to see if they encode molecules with bioactive properties, such as antibiotic or anticancer effects.
This technique allows Generare to express hundreds of gene clusters at once, thereby increasing the chances of identifying bioactive molecules exponentially. It also creates a virtuous circle of discovery because when Generare gathers more data, it has a better understanding of which clusters are most likely to yield valuable molecules. In this way, the team can focus on the most productive samples and expand Generare’s growing molecular “library”. This increases the chances of the novel molecules having higher potential to be “first-in-class” entities.
Guillaume Vandenesch, CEO, Generare.bio said: “At Generare, we are unlocking nature’s untapped potential, translating the complexity of microbial DNA into a scalable platform that can transform drug discovery. By leveraging cutting-edge biotechnology and data, we are accelerating the identification of new bioactive molecules, for medicine and beyond. This funding will allow us to accelerate our progress and achieve a transformation in the rate at which new viable drugs based on Natural Products can be discovered.”
Investors’ views
Romain Vidal at Teampact.ventures said: “Generare’s cohesive, mission-driven team embodies our philosophy that teamwork wins championships. Its blend of scientific excellence, innovative thinking, and collaborative leadership positions the team to revolutionise natural product discovery. We are confident that the Generare team will bring about a positive shift in how new medicines are developed harnessing nature’s ingenuity.”
Willy Braun at Galion.Exe said: “Generare is unlocking a vast reservoir of diverse, high-value bacterial molecules offering tremendous breakthrough potential in medicine, cosmetics, and agriculture. By harnessing shotgun cloning to capture complete DNA from multiple genomes at once, their platform eliminates the high costs of DNA synthesis and prevents the redundant rediscovery of already-known compounds, making it a true game changer in the industry”
Philippe Durieux, CEO at VIVES Partners, said: “Founded by world-renowned experts and grounded in pioneering academic research, Generare is revolutionising the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and biotech sectors by harnessing nature’s chemical diversity – just as penicillin transformed modern medicine. Natural Products represent the future of these sectors, and with the support of a consortium of top-tier partners, we are proud to back their mission to industrialise this groundbreaking innovation for the benefit of society.”
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