Zymofix, a Belgian startup that converts agricultural waste into microbial fertilizers, has closed a €6 million Series A round to build what it says will be its first industrial-scale manufacturing facility. The round, led by First Imagine! with backing from VP Capital, High-Tech Gründerfonds and The Nest Family Office, arrives as the company faces demand that exceeds its current production capacity.
The funding will finance a production plant in Deinze, Belgium. The facility is slated to come online in late 2027, though startups in the capital-intensive bioprocessing sector often encounter delays in commissioning complex fermentation infrastructure.
Zymofix occupies a specific niche in the agricultural biologicals market: it doesn't develop its own microbial strains. Instead, it operates as a contract development and manufacturing organization for multinational ag-input companies that lack in-house fermentation capabilities. Think of it as a foundry model, but for living organisms rather than semiconductors.
The company has run more than 170 different strains through its Zyft platform, working with bacteria, fungi and yeasts. What distinguishes Zymofix is its use of solid-state fermentation in bioreactors, with the original substrate retained in the final product. This contrasts with the more common liquid fermentation processes that dominate industrial bioprocessing. The approach allows agricultural waste to serve as both growth medium and delivery vehicle.
A Validation Milestone
The startup disclosed earlier this year that it completed a feasibility study with Bayer Crop Science, demonstrating that its solid-state fermentation can produce commercial strains meeting the quality benchmarks of established liquid processes. For a contract manufacturer, securing validation from a customer of Bayer's scale matters considerably. It signals to other potential clients that the platform works at industrial standards, not just in pilot runs.
Zymofix now counts more than 15 customers, most of them multinational agricultural-input firms, according to the company. Demand from that customer base has outstripped what the company can currently manufacture, which explains the urgency behind the Deinze buildout.
The company also secured a €1.9 million grant from VLAIO, the Flemish innovation agency, for a three-year research collaboration with Ghent University announced in June 2026. Grants of that size typically come with milestones and deliverables, adding another layer of validation but also commitment.
The Economics of Scale
Zymofix plans to spend the full €6 million on the initial Deinze facility, drawing on both the Series A proceeds and revenue from existing customer programs. The first phase will deliver 300 tonnes of annual capacity, enough to treat roughly one million hectares of farmland.
But 300 tonnes won't satisfy demand for long. The company has outlined a €25 million expansion in 2028 to reach 2,000 tonnes annually, though that hinges on the successful commissioning of the initial production line. It's a familiar pattern in industrial biotech: prove the process at scale, then raise more capital to expand.
Zymofix currently employs approximately 35 to 40 people.
The Manufacturing Problem
"Finding a promising microorganism is only part of the challenge," said Emile Redant, co-founder and CEO, in the announcement. "The harder part is manufacturing it consistently, efficiently and at the volumes the market requires."
Redant's framing reflects a broader issue in the biologicals sector. Academic labs and small startups routinely identify promising microbial strains. Scaling those discoveries into products that work in the field, across varying climates and soil types, is where many stumble. Manufacturing consistency becomes the bottleneck, particularly for products that must meet regulatory standards across multiple jurisdictions.
Boris Dorin, a partner at First Imagine!, said in a statement that "Zymofix has done the hard part: it has taken solid-state fermentation from a laboratory technique to a validated platform that industrial customers already depend on." That confidence likely stems from the customer base Zymofix has already assembled, including the Bayer relationship.
Mathijs van der Knaap, investment manager at VP Capital, noted his firm has "seen Zymofix progress from technology development and validation towards a manufacturing business with clear customer demand" since its initial investment. VP Capital participated in the company's €2 million seed round in November 2024, led by High-Tech Gründerfonds, and the new Series A.
The startup received earlier pre-seed support from biotope by VIB, a Belgian life sciences incubator, and earned recognition as an EIT Food RisingFoodStars verified scaleup.
Whether Zymofix can execute the Deinze buildout on schedule and budget will determine if the company becomes a meaningful player in contract biologicals manufacturing. The demand appears to be there. The next test is operational.
