New Dawn Bio raises €2.1M pre-seed to grow timber from tree stem cells
What's the deal? Dutch startup New Dawn BioDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has closed a €2.1M pre-seed round to grow timber from tree stem cells in bioreactors — no logging, no sawing, no planting. CapitalTDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, an Amsterdam-based founder-led fund, led the round. Norrsken EvolveDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Dutch holding company Ontdekkers Group, and several angel investors including CradleDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → co-founder Jelle Prins also participated.
Working out of Groningen, co-founders Tom Clement and Kianti Figler harvest stem cells directly from trees, multiply them in bioreactors, then guide those cells to differentiate and harden into solid timber — shaped from the outset into a finished product. No chemical binders required.
The company claims the process runs up to 10,000 times faster than conventional forestry. It already has physical prototypes and expects to sign its first commercial partnership imminently.
Why now? The world lost 4.3 million hectares of tropical primary forest in 2025 — still 46% higher than a decade ago, according to the World Resources Institute. Supply constraints are already biting in specific markets: balsa wood, a critical component in wind turbine blades, faces significant price volatility.
"Entire industries aren't able to make the products their customers want because we're running out of trees," Clement tells Impact Loop.
New Dawn Bio is targeting luxury wood markets first, where prices are highest, before working down to commodity grades over time. Clement argues the economics favour cultured wood more than other cultured biology ventures, like lab-grown protein, because wood prices vary so widely between commodity and premium grades.
What could go wrong? For CapitalT, this is uncharted territory. The fund mostly backs software and has never previously invested in biotech. Founding partner Janneke Niessen says the team's quality gave them enough conviction.
"We haven't done a biotech investment before," Niessen says. "But we really, really were impressed by Tom and Kianti. The energy, their vision, their drive — that's what excited us initially."
CapitalT screens founding teams using a proprietary data-driven framework covering personality traits, grit, and team cohesion — an attempt to systematise what most early-stage investors still do on gut instinct. Niessen says the approach also helps select more diverse founders.
The signal: CapitalT's emerging forestry cluster — spanning satellite-based tree monitoring (Overstory), drone harvesting (Airforestry), and now lab-grown timber — suggests the fund sees an entire value chain forming around reimagining how we manage and source wood. Norrsken Evolve's participation adds an impact-focused lens, aligning the round with growing investor appetite for deep-tech solutions to deforestation and materials decarbonisation beyond the more crowded alternative protein space.
Read more: Impact Loop
