Pordenone, 25 February 2025

Arsenale Bioyards, a neo-industrial company that is fundamentally redefining bio-manufacturing on an industrial scale, announced the closing of its first 10 million euro seed investment round involving CDP Venture Capital and international investors such as Planet A, byFounders and Plug and Play. The deal supports Arsenale's mission to transform the 200 billion dollar bio-manufacturing market (Source: BCG) by creating a new industrial trajectory in Italy.

With headquarters in Milan and operations in Pordenone and the US, Arsenale developed a platform that bridges the gap between laboratory-scale innovation and industrial-scale production, enabling industries such as food, chemicals and materials to continuously develop and scale up bio-based alternatives to petrochemicals and products derived from animals.

Arsenale aims to make the process of laboratory experimentation and industrial production more economically viable with a strong impact on costs, which will be reduced by up to 90%, while shortening the time to industrial-scale adoption of sustainable products.

Redefining bio-manufacturing for Italy and Europe

The Arsenale platform integrates advanced hardware, Artificial Intelligence software and a modular infrastructure to facilitate a transformative shift towards regenerative and circular production models. By harnessing precision fermentation, the company frees production from traditional fossil and animal inputs, allowing industries to adopt better, sustainable alternatives at scale.

"With this funding and the operational success of our Pordenone plant, Arsenale is proving that scalable and sustainable bio-manufacturing is not a distant aspiration but a near reality", said Massimo Portincaso, CEO and Co-founder of Arsenale Bioyards. "We are proud to contribute to Italy's industrial renaissance, building the infrastructure needed to make our country a European leader in advanced industrial biotechnology".

Exploiting Italy's talent and resources

Arsenale's commitment goes beyond technological innovation. The company actively promotes local and international talent, attracting foreign professionals from Silicon Valley and beyond to bring their expertise to Italy, as well as bringing back Italian talent currently working abroad. This initiative supports the development of high-level skills, and positions Italy as a hub for future technologies and industrial innovation, building on decades of manufacturing excellence.

Supporting Italy's role in the EU Green Transition

Arsenale's activities are closely aligned with the objectives of the European Union's NextGenerationEU initiative, which aims to promote sustainability, digital transformation and resilience across Europe.

CDP Venture Capital's investment was made through the Green Transition Fund, which uses resources allocated by the EU under the NextGenerationEU initiative and reflects Italy's commitment to driving change towards sustainable innovation and industrial renewal.

“Arsenale's solution is a perfect example of how manufacturing and Artificial Intelligence can revolutionise different industries, helping to create more sustainable production processes, reducing costs and CO2 emissions. Arsenale is building a bio-manufacturing platform that is fully integrated between the laboratory cultivation phase of the molecules and their industrial production, shortening production times, reducing costs and abandoning the use of petrochemical or animal molecules, currently in use. All this with a funding team that is attracting talent from all over the world” commented Cristina Tomassini, Senior Partner and Manager of CDP Venture Capital's Green Transition Fund, “We are very pleased with the agreement with Arsenale, which will stimulate a new way of doing new industry in our country”.

Arsenale operates a fully functioning pilot site in Pordenone, Italy, equipped with highly innovative bioreactors, including two advanced 500-litre units and a series of smaller precision fermentation reactor batteries. This operational infrastructure lays the foundation for Arsenale's ability to scale from laboratory to industry and highlights its readiness to meet the growing demand for sustainable biofabrication solutions.

The international and interdisciplinary nature of the founders brings together extensive expertise in engineering, biotechnology, AI and scalable industrial technologies. CEO Massimo Portincaso, former Partner and Managing Director of Berlin-based BCG, is an industry opinion leader who combines a bold vision of the future of bio-manufacturing with concrete entrepreneurial experience, having successfully co-founded Officinae Bio, a company acquired by the US-based Maravai Group.

Gordana Djordjevic, Chief Scientific Officer based in San Diego, has more than 25 years of scientific leadership at Perfect Day, Zymergen, Synthetic Genomics, BP and BASF, where she gained the experience required to overcome the barriers of industrial precision fermentation and take it beyond the boundaries of the pharmaceutical industry.

Niels Lynge Agerbæk, based in San Francisco, former Vice President of Zymergen, General Manager of Xellia Pharmaceuticals US and General Manager of Novo Nordisk Engineering US, is leading the technical implementation as CTO. Chief Information Officer Matteo Zanotto, a PhD in AI and deep learning based in Verona, Italy, drives Arsenale's software and algorithmic innovation, while COO Arnaud Legris, an engineer and former BCG consultant based in Paris, ensures seamless operational execution.