New Dawn Bio raises €2.1M pre-seed round for cultured wood

New Dawn Bio, a deeptech startup developing what it describes as the world’s first
cultured wood, has closed a €2.1 million oversubscribed pre-seed funding round.
The round was led by CapitalT, with participation from Norrsken Evolve,
Ontdekkers Group, and a group of prominent angel investors, including Jelle
Prins.

Founded
in 2024 by Tom Clement (CEO) and Kianti Figler (COO), New Dawn Bio is
developing a new approach to producing one of humanity’s oldest and most widely
used materials. By harvesting stem cells from trees, multiplying them in
bioreactors, and guiding their development into specific shapes, the company
can grow wood into its intended form. This process eliminates the need for
logging and enables production up to 10,000 times faster than conventional
forestry.

Tom
Clement, co-founder and CEO of New Dawn Bio, said the wood industry still
relies on a centuries-old process of shaping rectangular boards and beams from
round tree trunks:

For the
first time in history, we can grow premium wood directly into its final shape.
This funding allows us to advance our technology and bring a practical product
to market.

New Dawn
Bio’s technology aims to address the environmental and industrial challenges of
traditional timber production. With 5.3 million hectares of tropical forest
lost annually, the company’s approach could help reduce pressure on natural
forests while avoiding up to 2.1 gigatons of direct CO₂ emissions each year. Its shaped-wood production process
also reduces material waste and manufacturing costs by eliminating many
conventional woodworking steps.

At the
core of the company’s innovation is a new approach to wood production:
cultivating living plant cells into wood structures rather than harvesting and
processing trees. By combining advances in cell biology, materials science, and
engineering, New Dawn Bio is developing tunable wood materials while using AI
to accelerate research and development.

The
funding will be used to support the next stage of the company’s development,
including further technology advancement and team growth. New Dawn Bio brings
together expertise from a range of scientific and engineering disciplines to
support the development and scaling of its cultured wood technology.