Again has acquired the industrial biotechnology company Genomatica in a deal that combines a young carbon dioxide-to-chemical firm with one of the longest-standing developers of biobased chemicals. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Genomatica, founded in 1998 and based in San Diego, has spent nearly 3 decades developing and licensing fermentation processes for chemicals traditionally made from fossil feedstocks, including 1,4-butanediol (BDO) and nylon precursors. Its technology is used at commercial-scale plants producing BDO from sugar.
Founded in 2021, Copenhagen-based Again grew out of research from the Technical University of Denmark and uses engineered microbes to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen into chemicals. Since 2025, the company has produced acetic acid at a facility in Texas that uses CO2 from neighboring Dow operations. It has raised $67 million since its founding, according to PitchBook.
The acquisition gives Again access to Genomatica’s intellectual property, computational models, and decades of process development data. Again says the purchase will help it expand into other renewable feedstocks, including sugars.
“Rather than just having one aspect or one particular process, we felt there was a good opportunity to get all the engineering, all the computational models, and all the data that has been garnered over almost 3 decades,” says Harshvardhan Kathotia, Again’s head of commercial strategy.
The two companies already had ties, as Genomatica cofounder Christophe Schilling sits on Again’s board of directors.
Again’s Texas facility uses carbon dioxide as a feedstock to produce acetic acid. Credit:
Again
Genomatica also has a track record of commercial deployments. Its BDO technology has operated at a Novamont plant in Italy since 2016. And last year, the Qore joint venture between Cargill and Helm opened a $360 million BDO plant in Iowa that uses the technology. In 2024, Helm signed a 10-year agreement to market Again’s commodity chemicals, including acetic acid and esters.
Beyond BDO, Genomatica has built development and licensing partnerships with major chemical and consumer product companies, having worked with Unilever and Kao on production of palm oil alternatives and with Aquafil on biobased nylon intermediates.
James Iademarco, founder and president of the industrial biotechnology consulting firm Strategic Avalanche, calls Genomatica “one of the survivors” in the industrial biotechnology sector. He says the company succeeded in part by looking beyond the technology itself and building strong partnerships across the chemical value chain. “They kind of know the formula, including all the inevitable bumps and bruises, of how to get things to market,” Iademarco says.
From the outside, Genomatica appeared to be a valuable acquisition target, Iademarco says. “I am surprised that a ‘strategic’ like a top- or middle-tiered chemical company would have not seen the value in an acquisition.”
The combined company will pursue three business models: licensing technologies, codeveloping production pathways with partners, and selling chemicals from its own manufacturing assets. Kathotia says the firm is already in discussions with potential customers but declines to identify the molecules under consideration.
Again is also betting that Genomatica’s accumulated experimental data can help it develop new processes faster. In its announcement, Again says Genomatica’s capabilities include de novo molecule discovery and design, which it plans to combine with its own artificial intelligence–enabled bioprocess design and scale-up tools.
Again will also inherit Genomatica’s experience navigating an industry in which many promising technologies have failed to reach commercial scale. As Iademarco says, “There’s been a lot of obvious industry mistakes that Genomatica have, frankly, either sidestepped or figured out throughout their journey.”
Ana Georgescu covers a wide range of topics in Physical Sciences. She is also a frequent contributor to the Business desk and is probably working on a short video project at any given time.
