PhytoFoundry targets the cosmetics market with plant cell culture

UK startup PhytoFoundry has emerged from stealth with a plant cell culture platform designed to produce high-value bioactive compounds, initially targeting the premium cosmetics market. According to AgFunderNews, the company was incorporated in June 2026 and is developing bakuchiol as its first commercial target, while seeking pre-seed funding and exploring laboratory and manufacturing partnerships.

The company was founded by Samuel Casasola Zamora, PhD, who previously worked at Green Bioactives, a plant cell culture startup that ceased operations after struggling to secure additional funding. Former Green Bioactives executive Chris Meaney is also working with PhytoFoundry on a fractional basis, supporting its commercial strategy and fundraising efforts.

For Casasola Zamora, the new venture is an opportunity to apply technical and commercial lessons learned from his previous company.

“We achieved huge improvements in yield and productivity, but it was a little too late; we were out of time when we were close to that breakthrough.”

Meaney told AgFunderNews that the previous company's development accelerated toward the end, but that reaching that point had taken too long. PhytoFoundry is therefore starting with a different approach focused on commercial validation, product-market fit and capital efficiency.

“The strategy is commercial-led from day one: product-market fit, customer validation, and capital efficiency built into the foundation, not retrofitted later,” Casasola Zamora said.

The company's first target is bakuchiol, a plant-derived compound widely used in skincare as an alternative to retinol. It is traditionally extracted from the Psoralea corylifolia, or babchi, plant.

PhytoFoundry already has a letter of intent from an ingredient manufacturer that currently extracts bakuchiol from plant material but faces difficulties separating the desired compound from allergens. The startup plans to use plant cell culture to direct cellular metabolism toward bakuchiol while reducing the production of unwanted compounds, potentially simplifying downstream purification.

The company believes cosmetics offer a suitable entry point because premium ingredients can command higher prices and face fewer regulatory barriers than applications in other sectors.

The strategy is to first demonstrate the economics of plant cell culture with high-value ingredients at relatively low volumes. If successful, PhytoFoundry could later expand into more price-sensitive markets such as food and crop protection.

Casasola Zamora said investors are already familiar with the underlying technology but remain focused on two questions: whether it can scale economically and whether the addressable markets are large enough to support venture investment.

Bakuchiol could offer an entry point because of growing interest in alternatives to retinol. Casasola Zamora estimates that the retinol market represents an opportunity worth between $1.2 billion and $2 billion.

Plant cell culture has been used commercially in pharmaceuticals for decades, but applying the technology to lower-value markets remains challenging. Plant cells are larger and more sensitive to mechanical stress than microbial systems, often form clumps and generally grow more slowly.

A typical growth cycle can take around two weeks, which increases contamination risks and keeps production capacity occupied for longer periods.

Cell stability is another major challenge. Productivity can decline over successive passages, making the selection, preservation and banking of high-performing cell lines critical for maintaining consistent output.

“The quality of the cell should be high to start with, because otherwise you can spend a long time trying to improve bad quality cells. If you have suboptimal cells, they don’t grow at predictable rates or they’re unstable, then scale up is much more complicated.”

PhytoFoundry plans to place particular emphasis on selecting robust cell lines before moving toward larger-scale production. It also intends to develop cell banking systems that allow successive production batches to begin from the same developmental stage.

The company is also exploring how AI and structured experimental data could accelerate development. By recording variables from experiments, PhytoFoundry aims to build models that can identify patterns and guide future work on different cell lines.

“The other thing we’ve learned from experience is that having well-structured data in which we capture every possible variable becomes a very important asset. If you can capture all the conditions from all the experiments, you can implement some AI approaches to build a model and then apply learnings to subsequent cell lines so there is more rational design [of experiments] and you compress the development cycle.”

Rather than building its own manufacturing infrastructure from the beginning, PhytoFoundry hopes to use existing fermentation facilities and contract development and manufacturing organizations, or CDMOs, for scale-up.

The startup is currently seeking pre-seed funding and has secured HMRC Advance Assurance indicating that its planned fundraising is likely to qualify for the UK's Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme. It is also applying for grants and developing collaborations with potential partners.

The company is exploring laboratory space at Imperial College London's White City campus. A second cofounder with a chemistry background is involved, while several former Green Bioactives employees with plant cell culture expertise have expressed interest in joining if funding is secured.

PhytoFoundry's broader ambition is to establish plant cell culture as a commercially viable platform for producing valuable biological compounds.

“Plant cell culture is one of the most underutilized platforms in biotechnology. I believe it has a transformative role to play in how the world produces high-value biological molecules — and I am committed to taking it there. Some missions take longer than one attempt.”

Casasola Zamora summarized the decision to launch the company after his experience at Green Bioactives by saying: “It might sound like a crazy idea to get back into game but through the journey at Green Bioactives I found out what needs to be done in order for the company to succeed.”

According to AgFunderNews, plant cell culture involves growing plant cells in bioreactors under controlled conditions rather than cultivating entire plants. The approach can provide a more consistent production environment for certain compounds and potentially reduce dependence on agricultural land, water, weather conditions and other variables associated with conventional cultivation.

For PhytoFoundry, the immediate challenge is to demonstrate that those technical advantages can translate into commercially competitive production, starting with a high-value skincare ingredient and potentially expanding into additional markets.