Ancient bug creates food from art

In Austria, startup Arkeon Biotechnologies has raised $7 million to advance its single-step fermentation process for converting carbon dioxide into food ingredients. 

The company was birthed in 2021 by Evig, a Berlin-based company builder that brought together Arkeon founders Gregor Tegl, Simon Rittman, and Guenther Bochmann. The basis for the company is work performed by Rittman at the University of Vienna on Archaea, an ancient microorganism that evolved to survive in extreme settings. 

“The unique feature of the microorganism we’re using is that it’s producing all of the amino acids that we need in human nutrition,” Tegl, also CEO, tells Fast Company. “And it’s also spitting them out of the cell just naturally, which is an insane thing to do.”

The ingredients could be used to produce plant-based milk and meat with 99% less land and 0.01% of the water requirements of conventional counterparts.  “Basically, it has the potential to bypass agriculture,” says Michael Mitsakos, principal at Evig Group. 

The company will use the funds to expand a pilot facility and partner with breweries to use CO₂ they capture during fermentation.