ZymoChem Secures $4 Million in Renewed Federal Funding to Advance U.S. Biomanufacturing of Critical Materials and their Supply Chains
Rejuvenated grant awards from the DOE and ongoing work with national laboratories signal sustained federal commitment to domestic bio-based supply chains
ZymoChem was awarded $4 million in federal funding to tackle one of the most consequential industrial challenges of the decade: rebuilding domestic supply chains for the chemical building blocks of high performance materials.
San Leandro, Calif., Sep. 1, 2026 - ZymoChem, the specialty chemicals company dedicated to bringing decarbonization, sustainability, and supply chain resiliency to the chemical industry through innovative biological manufacturing, today announced the resumption and expansion of its federal research portfolio. The company has been notified that previously paused work under a $5 million U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) program is officially back on, to be joined by continuing collaborations with three of the nation's premier national laboratories.
ZymoChem’s most recent government award represents $4 million in federal funding and a $1 million program cost share directed at one of the most consequential industrial challenges of the decade: rebuilding domestic supply chains for high performance materials without the petroleum, the emissions, or the geopolitical exposure of the incumbent process.
“This funding is a vote of confidence in American biomanufacturing at a moment when it matters," said Harshal Chokhawala, PhD, CEO and Co-Founder of ZymoChem. "Decarbonizing the chemical industry is not a science problem alone. It's a supply chain problem, an industrial policy problem, and a national security problem. We are grateful to our partners in the U.S. Government and the national labs for backing America’s future.”
DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO): $5 Million in Total for Bio-Based Building Blocks
With the DOE award and cost share totaling $5 million, ZymoChem will lead a consortium that includes Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit (LBL-ABPDU) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), working on fermentation scale-up and process development, and techno-economic and life-cycle analyses.
The work targets the production of bio-based intermediates that serve as drop-in replacements for petroleum-derived precursors in high-performance polymers. These are categories with a combined global market measured in tens of millions of tons annually.
National Laboratory Partnerships: LBNL and Oak Ridge
The newly resumed DOE award builds on a growing slate of ZymoChem collaborations with the national laboratory system. The company is already engaged with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory through the Agile BioFoundry (ABF), where a $250,000 DOE-funded project announced earlier in 2026 applies machine learning and proteomics to accelerate development of bio-adipic acid, a precursor to bio-nylon 6,6.
Concurrently, ZymoChem has two active projects at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), supported by approximately $400,000 in DOE funding, that complement and extend the company's broader bio-based materials platform.
"Our work at LBNL, NREL, and Oak Ridge gives us access to the deepest bench of biomanufacturing expertise in the world," Dr. Chokhawala added. "It also means American taxpayer-funded science is being translated directly into American industrial capability. That's exactly the model that should be scaling.”
Why It Matters
Historically, bio-based chemicals have been positioned as a sustainability story. ZymoChem's work, which is backed by an investor syndicate that includes strategic investors lululemon athletica inc. and Toyota Ventures, increasingly tells a second story: industrial, supply chain resilience. The same molecules that lower the carbon footprint of yoga pants or a car’s air bag are also the molecules that, today, the U.S. cannot reliably produce at home. The federal awards recently shared with ZymoChem are aimed squarely at closing that gap.
To learn about other collaborations that ZymoChem has with the U.S. Government, please review additional announcements found at www.zymochem.com/news.