As antibiotic resistance escalates into a global health crisis, bacteriophages – viruses that specifically target and destroy bacteria are gaining renewed attention as next-generation antimicrobial solutions. The global bacteriophage market is expected to reach up to USD 3 billion by 2035, growing at a CAGR of around 10.58% from 2025 to 2035. In this article, the hand-picked emerging bacteriophage companies are developing innovative solutions across phage lysins, synthetic phage platforms, genome annotation, bioinformatics, and more.
These emerging companies and startups are selected based on their founding year, funding activity, technological focus, and global footprint. Whether you’re an investor, pharmaceutical executive, or biotech innovator, this snapshot offers valuable insights into the companies shaping the future of bacteriophage-based healthcare.
Global Startup Heat Map highlights Emerging Bacteriophage Companies to Watch
Through the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering over 7M+ startups, 20K+ technology trends plus 150M+ patents, news articles & market reports, we identified 98 bacteriophage startups.
The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights the emerging bacteriophage companies and startups you should watch in 2025, as well as the geo-distribution of Bacteriophage startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research.
According to our data, we observe high startup activity in Western Europe and the USA, followed by India. The top 5 Startup Hubs for Bacteriophage Startups are London, Sydney, Bangalore, Cambridge, and Boston.
Meet Emerging Bacteriophage Companies to Watch in 2025
We hand-picked startups to showcase in this report by filtering for their technology, founding year, location, funding, and other metrics. These emerging bacteriophage startups work on solutions ranging from phage bioinformatics, AI-assisted phage development, antimicrobial resistance, and more.
- Tolka AI Therapeutics – Smart Scalable Phage Therapy
- PrecisionPhage – Phage Bioinformatics
- Precise Health – Antimicrobial Resistance
- Obulytix – Phage Lysins
- Phiogen – Hyper-lytic Phages
- MEDEA Biopharma – High-precision Phages
- PhageAI – AI-assisted Phage Development
- Rime Bioinformatics – Phage Genome Annotation
- MINIMUM bio – Phage Display Technology
- Invitris – Cell-free Synthetic Phage
1. Tolka AI Therapeutics
- Founding Year: 2022
- Location: Miami, FL, USA
- Use For: Smart Scalable Phage Therapy
Tolka AI Therapeutics develops smart, scalable phage therapy that targets chronic and hard-to-treat bacterial infections, such as Mycobacterium abscessus complex pulmonary disease (MABC-PD). The startup uses the precision and adaptability of bacteriophages to create patient-tailored therapeutics.
This allows for small-batch production that addresses specific infection profiles. By utilizing a disease-agnostic platform, the solution is applicable to a wide range of bacterial infections. Tolka AI Therapeutics thus combats antibiotic resistance effectively, and its focus is on developing safe and effective therapies for orphan infections.
2. PrecisionPhage
- Founding Year: 2022
- Location: Jyväskylä, Finland
- Use For: Phage bioinformatics
- Funding: Received EUR 1.2 million from the Deep Tech Accelerator funds
PrecisionPhage utilizes advanced bioinformatic analysis to provide insights into bacteriophage characteristics and interactions. The startup facilitates effective licensing and laboratory services customized to client needs. The analysis platform enables researchers and companies to identify suitable bacteriophages for therapeutic applications and optimize their use in combating bacterial infections.
PrecisionPhage’s online platform, Phagenomics, streamlines genome assembly, annotation, and comparative analysis without the need for coding expertise. The startup’s proprietary algorithms ensure high-quality and reproducible genome insights that reduce time and cost for researchers.
3. Precise Health
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Sion, Switzerland
- Use For: Antimicrobial Resistance
Precise Health develops bacteriophage therapies that serve as alternatives to the adverse effects of broad-spectrum antibiotics. The startup’s platform harnesses bacteriophages to create personalized cures that combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
It facilitates the precise elimination of pathogens, minimizing the disruption of the gut microbiome, a side effect of traditional antibiotic treatments. Precise Health thus provides effective and safe therapies that enhance patient outcomes while preserving beneficial microbial communities in the body.
4. Obulytix
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Ghent, Belgium
- Use For: Phage Lysins
- Funding: Obulytix raised EUR 4 million in Seed funding
Obulytix develops an enzyme-based antibiotic that utilizes phage lysins to rapidly kill bacteria and combat multidrug-resistant infections. The startup’s development platform utilizes AI to enhance the discovery and optimization of these enzyme-based antibiotics. This ensures the products meet the stringent innovation criteria set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Obulytix’s VersaTile method streamlines the hit-to-lead process, accelerating the development of lysins tailored for extensively drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. The solution thus eliminates bacterial resistance development, providing a scalable solution for combating chronic infections.
5. Phiogen
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Houston, TX, USA
- Use For: Hyper-lytic Phages
Phiogen develops a biotechnology platform that generates next-generation therapeutics using naturally occurring bacteriophages to address drug-resistant infections. The startup employs high-throughput screening to evolve phages specifically against resistant bacteria. This creates predictive and smart products that enable doctors to utilize broad-spectrum antibacterials for treating recurrent and life-threatening infections.
Phiogen produces therapeutics that adapt to evolving bacterial strains and focuses on broad patient applications. The startup provides effective solutions for combating the threat of antimicrobial resistance. Thus, improving patient outcomes and advancing the field of infectious disease treatment.
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6. MEDEA Biopharma
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Ludwigshafen, Germany
- Use For: High-precision Phages
Medea Biopharma develops high-precision bacteriophage-based antimicrobials to eliminate harmful bacteria across multiple sectors. It validates bacterial targets to discover effective phages that enable scalable, tailored applications for human health, animal well-being, and agriculture.
The startup leverages the natural specificity of phages to provide sustainable alternatives to conventional antibiotics and pesticides. This reduces environmental impact while maintaining efficacy. Medea Biopharma’s approach ensures targeted bacterial elimination without disrupting beneficial microbiota, supporting long-term antimicrobial strategies.
7. PhageAI
- Founding Year: 2021
- Location: Białystok, Poland
- Use For: AI-assisted Phage Development
PhageAI develops an AI-assisted platform that automates bioinformatics analysis for bacteriophage characteristics and discovery. The startup utilizes proprietary algorithms to accelerate the process of phage characterization, reducing the time required for analysis from several days to less than an hour. This enhances the efficiency and accuracy of phage research, which addresses critical gaps in the development of new phage-based therapies.
PhageAI’s platform includes its ability to provide precise insights into phage properties and its user-friendly interface that facilitates access for researchers. The startup improves phage research that allows scientists to explore and harness the potential of bacteriophages in combating bacterial infections.
8. Rime Bioinformatics
- Founding Year: 2021
- Location: Palaiseau, France
- Use For: Phage Genome Annotation
Rime Bioinformatics offers phage genome annotation services that accelerate research in medical, agronomic, and veterinary fields. It utilizes in-house bioinformatics technologies to provide an in-depth analysis of bacterial and bacteriophage genomes. The insights from this analysis facilitate research and development processes leading to phage therapies.
Rime Bioinformatics makes high-performance bioinformatics accessible, which enhances the understanding of phage characteristics and supports the safe application of phage therapy for patients and the environment. The solution streamlines the R&D process and promotes responsible phage usage.
9. MINIMUM bio
- Founding Year: 2022
- Location: Sydney, Australia
- Use For: Phage Display Technology
MINIMUM bio develops phage display technology that accelerates early-phase research and development in the pharmaceutical sector. Mercurious is the startup’s high-throughput discovery platform that rapidly identifies proteins that bind to bioactive molecules of interest.
This facilitates the development of new therapeutic products and the repositioning of existing drugs. By repurposing antibody phage display for drug target discovery, it offers significant advantages over conventional methods, including increased speed, reduced background noise, and decreased bias toward common, high-abundance targets.
The Mercurious platform includes its integration of advances in molecular biology, next-generation sequencing, and machine learning, which creates a pipeline for customizable and scalable drug target identification. The startup enhances the efficiency of drug development processes, saving time and costs.
10. Invitris
- Founding Year: 2022
- Location: Munich, Germany
- Use For: Cell-free Synthetic Phage
Invitris develops a cell-free synthetic phage platform called Phactory that facilitates the design of synthetic proteins. The startup’s platform makes the process more efficient while reducing material costs. The platform creates novel classes of protein-based drugs, including next-generation antibiotics, by utilizing synthetic biology techniques that streamline protein synthesis.
Phactory produces complex proteins rapidly and cost-effectively, which accelerates the development timeline for new therapeutics. This improves the drug development process by providing efficient and scalable solutions that address critical needs in the pharmaceutical industry, particularly in combating antibiotic resistance.
Discover All Emerging BioTech Startups
The bacteriophage startups showcased in this report are only a small sample of all startups we identified through our data-driven startup scouting approach. Download our free BioTech Innovation Report for a broad overview of the industry or get in touch for quick & exhaustive research on the latest technologies & emerging solutions that will impact your company in 2025!
