Triton Algae Raises $5M to Bring First Product to Market Next Year

Algae Biomass, Algae Pharmaceuticals, Neutraceuticals

In the spring of 2012, when Jason Pyle announced his departure from San Diego’s Sapphire Energy, he told me he already was deeply involved with a new enterprise that was in stealth mode. Much of the work was being done in San Diego, he said, but nothing beyond that.

Today the wraps are coming off of Triton Algae Innovations; a synthetic biology startup based in San Diego that says it has closed on $5 million in Series A funding, according to a statement from the company.

The investment in Triton came from Heliae Technology Holdings, part of an industrial biotechnology company based in Gilbert, AZ, that raised $28.4 million in July to support the operation of its first commercial algae production facility. The Arizona plant is expected to begin operating this month, “supplying high value personal care and nutraceutical products to existing customers,” according to a Heliae press release in July.

Whether Heliae also intends to make algae-based products for Triton is unclear, as Pyle was unavailable for comment late yesterday. Triton co-founder Stephen Mayfield, who is director of the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology at UC San Diego (and who also was a scientific co-founder of Sapphire Energy), is in Tokyo this week and could not be reached for comment.

Triton says it has developed a synthetic biology platform that also uses algae to produce “high value” proteins. The company says it already is producing complex proteins, enzymes, and other biologics that are cost-effective and can be immediately used in agricultural, pharmaceutical, and other retail markets.

Mayfield, an expert in the genetics of algae, explained a few years ago that algae are ideal organisms for producing biotech drugs because they are relatively easy to grow, especially in comparison to other organisms like bacteria, yeast, and mammalian cells that are used to make many biotechnology drugs.

The concept is similar for both: After identifying and isolating the gene that directs cellular machinery to produce a particular therapeutic protein or antibody, scientists insert

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.