South African biotech Immobazyme has added R25 million in growth capital, lifting its total financing to R50 million, or about $2.9 million.
The latest round was led by the University Technology Fund UTF II, with follow-on support from University of Stellenbosch Enterprises and a new strategic investor, Fireball Capital.
The company says the money will complete a new 1,800 square metre site in Cape Town and accelerate work on its proprietary therapeutics pipeline.
Immobazyme began in 2019 as a spinout from Stellenbosch University and was founded by Dominic Nicholas, Ethan Hunter and Nicholas Enslin.
The firm uses precision fermentation to program microbes to produce complex proteins such as recombinant growth factors, peptides and enzymes.
Those biologics are inputs for sectors ranging from cultivated meat and cosmetics to applied research and higher-value therapeutics.
To date the company has generated revenue by selling enzymes and growth factors to industrial partners, and the new funding is intended to shift more capacity toward pharmaceutical-grade applications.
The backdrop for this raise is an industry-level concern that Africa imports the bulk of its active pharmaceutical ingredients and other biologics.
Global supply shocks and currency swings have exposed the risk of relying on overseas manufacturers. Immobazyme positions itself as a local option with an emphasis on lowering production costs through its platform, making regional manufacturing economically viable for a market that is price sensitive.
The Cape Town facility will combine research laboratories with a production cleanroom so the firm can shorten the cycle from design to commercial manufacturing.
Over the next year management plans to hire specialised staff, increase production volumes to serve export partners, and progress internal drug candidates toward clinical stages.
The round also coincided with an early investor exit, which industry watchers view as an encouraging sign of liquidity in African deep tech.
From my perspective, Immobazyme’s strategy reflects a sensible response to two intersecting trends. First, donors and investors are showing more interest in building industrial biotech capacity that reduces import dependence.
Second, advances in precision fermentation are lowering unit costs, which helps make local production competitive.
However, moving from enzyme supply to therapeutic manufacturing is a heavy lift. Producing clinical-grade biologics requires strict compliance with good manufacturing practice, robust quality control, and often substantial scale to achieve attractive margins.
Key risks remain. Scaling up biological production is technically demanding and can expose companies to costly delays if process yields or purification steps underperform.
Regulatory pathways for biologics are onerous and vary across African jurisdictions, which can slow commercial rollouts.
Talent is another constraint; recruiting experienced bioprocess engineers, quality assurance specialists and regulatory experts will be essential for the new facility to operate at the standards global buyers expect.
Still, the investment signals growing confidence that local platforms can supply higher-value products rather than only lower-margin commodities.
If Immobazyme can validate repeatable, cost-effective processes and meet international quality benchmarks, it could become a regional supplier for therapeutics and lab reagents, and open export opportunities into Europe and Asia.
For South Africa, successful scale-up would reduce exposure to external supply shocks and create skilled manufacturing jobs.
Immobazyme’s latest raise is a practical bet on building on-continent capability for biologics. The next 12 to 24 months will be telling, as the company moves from R&D and enzyme sales into regulated production and clinical work.
If execution holds, this could be one of the more notable examples of African deep tech moving from lab prototypes to industrial capacity.
This post first appeared on Launch Base Africa.
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