Weiyuan Synthesis Secures Nearly 300 Million Yuan in Financing, Develops Bulk Bio-based Products Using Methanol as Raw Material | Exclusive by 36Kr
36Kr learned that "Weiyuan Synthesis" recently received nearly 300 million yuan in a new round of equity financing. The investors include Beijing New Materials Industry Investment Fund, Beijing Medical and Health Industry Investment Fund, China Construction Bank Investment, and Zhongguancun Capital.
It is understood that Weiyuan Synthesis has completed the R & D and industrialization of multiple human nutrition and animal nutrition products, such as allulose, lutein, and mannitol. The funds from this round of financing will be mainly used to accelerate the R & D and layout of the product pipeline for bulk bio - based products through methanol biomanufacturing.
At present, the biomanufacturing track based on synthetic biotechnology has shifted from technology worship to practical capacity and commercialization. Looking back at the product selection and development path of Weiyuan Synthesis in the past few years, its development logic can be seen: First, respect the market and find real market demands; reduce costs and increase efficiency through synthetic biotechnology and build barriers; mobilize the resource input from multiple parties for the industrialization of the pipeline.
In the field of human nutrition, Weiyuan Synthesis has made substantial commercial progress in the development of core single products such as allulose. In July 2025, Weiyuan Synthesis officially obtained the administrative license for a new food ingredient from the National Health Commission, becoming the first enterprise in the country to be approved for allulose production through the biological fermentation process.
This license is based on Weiyuan Synthesis' globally - first "one - step fermentation biotransformation process", which uses the patented strain AS10 to directly convert glucose or sucrose into allulose. Compared with the traditional double - enzyme isomerization method, this process simplifies the process, improves product stability, and significantly reduces production costs. In terms of commercialization, in August 2025, Weiyuan Synthesis established a strategic cooperation with Cargill, a globally well - known food and ingredient company: "The two parties will conduct long - term and in - depth cooperation in areas such as distribution and promotion, production collaboration, and scenario co - creation around allulose and other sugar - reducing and functional sugar products."
Now, Weiyuan Synthesis is expanding its pipeline to the field of bulk bio - based products, with early layout and technical reserves. As early as mid - 2024, Liu Bo, the founder of Weiyuan Synthesis, told 36Kr that the company was developing non - grain carbon sources and corresponding chassis strains for large - scale application and reserving technologies for low - cost mass production of bulk bio - based polymers.
The core investment direction of this nearly 300 million yuan round of financing is the more strategically significant "methanol biomanufacturing". It is reported that Weiyuan Synthesis has successfully developed multiple high - efficiency methanol - assimilating strains and is accelerating the layout of product pipelines including bulk amino acids and bio - based material monomers. This layout aims to use non - grain carbon sources for biomanufacturing to solve the long - standing raw material bottleneck in the industry.
In the past few years, guided by themes such as carbon neutrality and sustainable development, synthetic biotechnology and biomanufacturing methods have been highly anticipated. McKinsey once predicted that 60% of global material production could be achieved through biosynthesis in the future.
However, in fact, the total annual production of chemical products globally is about 2.3 billion tons at present, while the production of bio - based products is only 180 million tons. If all products were produced through biomanufacturing, about 6 billion tons of grain would be needed, while the total global grain output available as raw materials for biomanufacturing is about 2.8 billion tons. If biomanufacturing is to be vigorously developed, the use of "non - grain" raw materials is an inevitable path. The development of "non - grain" bio - based products, especially biomanufacturing technologies using carbon sources such as straw, corncobs, and carbon dioxide as raw materials, has attracted industry attention. However, the costs in multiple links such as collection, storage, transportation, and processing also face many challenges.
In this context, methanol has become a relatively ideal alternative carbon source. Currently, China's coal - to - methanol production capacity has exceeded 100 million tons, accounting for 67% of the global total, and there is a problem of over - capacity. At the same time, with the development of renewable energy, the technical path of producing "green methanol" by reducing carbon dioxide with green hydrogen is gradually maturing, and the planned green methanol production capacity in China is about 60 million tons.
By using methanol as the chassis raw material, Weiyuan Synthesis can not only produce bulk amino acids through technological innovation to reduce China's dependence on imported soybean meal and ensure food security; it can also effectively digest the over - capacity of methanol in the country and is expected to connect the industrial chain from coal gas and methanol to bio - based new materials.