ÄIO and TFTAK secure €1.94M for digital

Estonian biotechnology company ÄIO and research organisation TFTAK have been awarded €1.94 million in funding for a three-year research and development project. The grant comes from the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency's Applied Research Programme.

The funding supports the DigiFoundry 2.0 project, which has a total budget of approximately €2.53 million. The initiative aims to combine synthetic biology, fermentation, automation, and digital process control. The goal is to improve the efficiency and scalability of producing oils and fats from industrial side-streams.

Project Goals and Technology

ÄIO develops fermentation-based oils and fats for potential use in food and cosmetics. TFTAK contributes expertise in synthetic biology and bioprocess development. Their new project builds on three years of prior collaborative research.

"With DigiFoundry, we built the foundation. With DF2.0, we are connecting biology, fermentation and digitalisation into one integrated production system," says Prof. Petri-Jaan Lahtvee, Co-founder and COO of ÄIO. The partners aim to make microbial oil production sustainable, efficient, and economically competitive at an industrial scale.

The project will work on linking microbial strain development with automated production and data analysis. This integrated approach is designed to reduce development and manufacturing costs while improving process consistency.

Sustainability and Commercial Vision

ÄIO's technology uses microorganisms to transform low-value organic side-streams from food, agricultural, and wood industries into high-value ingredients. This approach seeks to reduce dependence on traditional oil crops and long supply chains.

Company data claims the fermentation process can reduce land use by up to 97% and water consumption by up to 90% compared to conventional production methods. The technology is positioned as an alternative to ingredients like tropical oils and animal fats.

"The future of biotechnology is not only about engineering better microorganisms. It is about creating smarter processes around them," Lahtvee adds. Digitalisation is seen as key to making precision fermentation commercially viable by shortening development cycles and improving control.

The Research Partnership

DF2.0 continues the collaboration between ÄIO and the privately owned research organisation TFTAK. The original DigiFoundry project ran from 2023 to 2026 and created a prototype platform for automated microbial strain design.

"DF2.0 brings together two areas that are essential for the next generation of industrial biotechnology: advanced biology and intelligent process development," says Dr. Steven van der Hoek, Scientific Lead at TFTAK. His team will contribute synthetic biology tools and strain-engineering capabilities focused on precision fermentation.

The project aligns with ÄIO's move from technology development toward broader commercial production. The company, founded in 2022 as a spin-off from Tallinn University of Technology, has progressed from laboratory work to tonne-scale production.

ÄIO's project was ranked first among the applications approved in the funding programme's tenth round. The Applied Research Programme is funded by Estonia's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.