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Executive Summary: Which are the Top 10 BioTech Startups to Watch?
- SALMOSS Biotech (Chile): Biomimetic salmon bone grafts for orthopedic and dental reconstruction.
- Arthro Biotech (India): Black soldier fly bioconversion of organic waste into insect-based products.
- Dogma Biotech (Colombia): AI-designed minimalist glycans for enhanced protein therapies.
- Impulsonics (UK): Acoustic wave-based benchtop automation for cell passaging.
- Prevo Biotech (Germany): Precision fermentation to enhance flavor and texture in plant-based foods.
- Urobo Biotech (South Africa): Enzymatic recycling of bioplastics into fuels and chemicals.
- Cloudburst Biotech (Canada): Tailored nucleoside analogs for RNA therapeutics targeting rare diseases.
- MOLECL (Switzerland): Solid-state nanopore platform for biomolecular quality control.
- Mara Bio (New Zealand): Fungal fermentation of food by-products into functional proteins.
- Upli (UK): Precision-fermented human milk proteins for early life and medical nutrition.
Global Startup Heat Map highlights Emerging BioTech Startups 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 the top biotech startups.
The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights emerging biotech startups you should watch in 2026, as well as the geo-distribution of 3100+ startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research.
According to our data, we observe high startup activity in the USA and the UK, followed by India. The top 5 Startup Hubs for BioTech are Cambridge, San Francisco, New York City, London, and Boston.
Discover Emerging BioTech Startups to Watch in 2026
We hand-picked startups to showcase in this report by filtering for their technology, founding year, location, funding, and other metrics. These top biotech startups work on solutions ranging from automation and antisense oligonucleotide therapies to biomolecule quality control and infant formulas.
1. SALMOSS Biotech
- Founding Year: 2024
- Location: Santiago, Chile
- Use For: Bone Reconstruction from Salmon Bone
Chilean startup SALMOSS Biotech develops a biomimetic bone grafting material derived from salmon bone for orthopedic and dental reconstruction. The startup uses a proprietary technology to process salmon bones and remove organic content while maintaining the natural porous mineral structure. This creates a xenogenic bone substitute with high osteoconductivity.
This method promotes cell adhesion and bone regeneration by mimicking the geometry of human cancellous bone without the risks of synthetic or bovine grafts. Its product, SALMOSS Graft, provides structural integrity, mechanical strength, and compatibility with resorption.
It removes the immunological, zoonotic, and ethical issues associated with mammalian sources. Additionally, the production process highlights environmental sustainability by repurposing fish industry waste.
2. Arthro Biotech
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Hyderabad, India
- Use For: Organic Waste to Insect Products
Indian startup Arthro Biotech uses black soldier fly (BSF) cultivation and bioconversion technology to turn organic waste into useful insect-derived products.
Its product range includes high-protein insect meal for animal feed, biofertilizers for plant health, and functional extracts for uses like biopesticides and nutraceuticals.
Arthro Biotech thus reduces its dependency on conventional feedstock and chemical inputs by combining precision farming and waste valorization. Moreover, its closed-loop manufacturing process ensures traceability, economical use of resources, and low environmental impact.
3. Dogma Biotech
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Bogota, Colombia
- Use For: Protein-based Therapies
- Funding Received USD 100 000 Award
Colombian startup Dogma Biotech develops minimalist glycans to enhance protein-based therapies. It uses an AI-driven synthetic biology platform to engineer streamlined glycosylation patterns that diverge from traditional human-like structures.
Instead of replicating complex natural glycosylation, the platform designs simplified glycans that match or exceed therapeutic efficacy. By minimizing post-translational complexity, the technology increases host-cell productivity and reduces protein manufacturing costs.
4. Impulsonics
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Bristol, United Kingdom
- Use For: Cell Passaging Streamlining
- Funding: Closed GBP 450K Initial Funding Round
UK-based startup Impulsonics builds benchtop automation systems that streamline cell passaging using acoustic wave technology. It projects sterile acoustic waves directly into culture plates to manipulate cells in their native media and eliminate the need for large machines with moving parts.
Thus, the startup reduces system complexity, improves reliability, and maintains a sterile environment throughout the process. Also, it enables scalable and accessible automation for biotechnology labs of all sizes.
5. Prevo Biotech
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Freising, Germany
- Use For: Biomass Fermentation
German startup Prevo Biotech develops a fermentation method that creates natural compounds to improve the flavor and texture of plant-based foods. The startup’s product, Dagon, is a protein-derived component that works synergistically with legume proteins to enhance structural integrity and reduce off-notes.
Prevo Biotech uses precision fermentation to separate and produce functional protein components that blend with current formulations without artificial chemicals or masking agents.
Dagon‘s low inclusion levels enable producers to lower the amount of sugar and salt while preserving the desired flavor and mouthfeel. Thus, this method is useful in dairy analogs, meat substitutes, and functional nutrition items.
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6. Urobo Biotech
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Stellenbosch, South Africa
- Use For: Sustainable Waste Management
South African startup Urobo Biotech builds enzymatic recycling technologies that convert bioplastics, particularly polylactic acid (PLA), into high-value fuels and chemicals. It integrates microbial and enzymatic solutions directly into existing waste processing settings, including organic waste facilities and conventional plastic recycling streams, to treat bioplastic fractions.
As a result, it avoids the need for separate sorting or collection systems while enhancing biogas production, reducing landfill waste, and shortening processing times. By selectively breaking down bioplastics within mixed waste, the startup enables cost savings and creates additional revenue streams for waste facilities.
7. Cloudburst Biotech
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Burnaby, Canada
- Use For: Antisense Oligonucleotide Therapies
- Funding: Raised USD 3 million in Seed Funding
Canadian startup Cloudburst Biotech creates structurally tailored nucleoside analogs to advance ribonucleic acid (RNA)-based therapeutics targeting undruggable and rare diseases. Its RAvIN platform simplifies nucleoside synthesis to increase chemical diversity and synthesis yield.
This enables the production of med-chem-ready nucleoside cores with enhanced abstract chemical absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity (ADMET) profiles, improved extrahepatic distribution, and better blood-brain barrier penetration. By integrating principles from small molecule drug discovery, the platform expands the chemical toolkit available for antisense oligonucleotides and other RNA medicines.
8. MOLECL
- Founding Year: 2024
- Location: Switzerland
- Use For: Biomolecules Quality Control
Swiss startup MOLECL develops a compact nanopore biosensing platform for molecular quality control and structural analysis across deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), RNA, antibodies, and proteins. It uses solid-state nanopores integrated into tailored flow cells and software packages to deliver precise molecular profiling.
Thus, the platform enables minimal setup with lab-quality results through a simple, capsule-like interface. Also, it provides full-stack characterization across multiple pipelines and detects structural variation and size distribution.
9. Mara Bio
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Tomoana, New Zealand
- Use For: Sustainable Food Ingredients Production
- Funding: Received USD 50 000 Investment
New Zealand-based startup Mara Bio develops a fungal fermentation platform that transforms food industry by-products into nutrient-rich, functional proteins. It uses an edible fungi strain in submerged fermentation to metabolize residual sugars from by-products. This produces a high-protein, high-fibre biomass that is then processed into versatile ingredients.
The resulting product, Flexitein, offers clean-label, taste-neutral nutrition with essential amino acids and supports applications from drinks and snacks to senior and infant nutrition. The process operates with less freshwater and higher carbon-to-protein efficiency compared to existing mycoprotein systems.
10. Upli
- Founding Year: 2024
- Location: Covent Garden, UK
- Use For: Healthier Infant Formulas
UK-based startup Upli creates bioidentical human milk proteins using precision fermentation to enhance functional food and medical nutrition. It engineers proteins such as alpha-lactalbumin by replicating the nutritional properties of breast milk without relying on animal sources. As a result, it produces sustainable ingredients that support immune, gut, metabolic, and cognitive health from infancy through adulthood.
Discover All Emerging BioTech Startups
The biotechnology companies 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 2026!
