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.