Craft BioSolutions · Modular fermentation
Capacity should follow the product.
Craft is developing modular fermentation systems for the space between a flask and a factory — when the biology is promising, the process is still being proven, and demand is still taking shape.
The missing middle
Most products need a way to learn before they need a factory.
A company can prove a useful culture in a lab and still face a decision far too early: pay a contract manufacturer or build a factory. Both are fixed bets when the process, the product, and the demand are still moving.
Craft is building for the period before that decision makes sense. The goal is not to replace every large facility. Mature, high-volume products will still belong in them. It is to give a team a way to make real batches, understand what its biology can actually do, and decide what capacity should come next.
What we are building
A bag, a wall, and a model.
Our approach pairs shallow, single-use fermentation vessels with low-energy mixing, sensors, controllable pumps, and a growing process-data record. The system is designed to help teams add controlled capacity in steps, without making the product fit a large fixed asset before it is ready.
- Product protection. A shallow vessel and low-energy mixing architecture designed to reduce the cleaning, steam, energy, and shear burden of conventional equipment.
- Operational control. Sensors, controllable pumps, and a process model make each run more legible and help define whether a product fits the system.
- A better next decision. Each batch should produce evidence: what happened, what constrained the process, and what should happen next.
Modular cabinet architecture
This cabinet concept represents the architecture we are developing from today’s 2L work toward parallel 25–40L MVP runs and a planned 200L partner beta.
Paid feasibility studies
Turn a promising culture into a manufacturing decision.
Bring a strain and a definition of success: fermentation time, yield, viable-cell count, recovery, stability, or another finished-product requirement. We run a controlled early fermentation and return a data package and product samples that help answer the next question: what capacity should come next?
Set the requirements.
Align on the process and finished-product requirements that make the run useful.
Document what happens.
Use the 2L system for a controlled early run and make the important constraints visible.
Learn before you commit.
Use the data package and samples to decide whether to pursue a larger run, CMO campaign, or further process development.
The roadmap
Build the evidence before the fixed bet.
Working instrumented system for training fermentations, data collection, and early closed-loop-control work.
An MVP designed to run two parallel fermentations and test the constraints that matter at useful partner scale.
A planned cabinet beta for partners, after the MVP has demonstrated what deserves to scale.
Who we are building for
One platform. Different constraints.
Government & austere environments
Fermentation at the point of need for conditions where power, infrastructure, logistics, and specialized operators are constrained. The question is not how to move a conventional factory. It is what a useful, resilient system must do for a trained technician.
Space-based biomanufacturing
In microgravity, there is no buoyancy-driven convection, mixing is difficult, and sparging creates flight-safety constraints. We are exploring whether productive fermentation in a shallow bag can use ambient cabin oxygen and low-energy mixing. This is ground-development work, not a claim of flight readiness.
Incremental capacity for product teams
For companies developing microbial products, capacity should expand with the product and demand—not years before either is real. Mature products will still use large plants. Before that, teams need controlled capacity to learn.
Researchers & unconventional biology
Non-model organisms, phage, unusual media, fragile cultures, and early process-development work often do not fit the assumptions built into standard equipment. We are building a controlled fermentation environment for the questions that are not obvious yet.
Notes from the Edge
The argument behind the work.
Start a conversation
Bring the decision you need to make.
We are looking for product developers interested in paid feasibility studies, platform-development partners who can challenge the system, organizations working on resilient or point-of-need fermentation, researchers with unusual process constraints, and investors who understand that capacity must follow the product.
Please do not send strain details, proprietary process information, or other confidential IP through this form. We will arrange the appropriate follow-up before discussing confidential details.
Prefer email? mitchell@craftbiosolutions.com