Atlas Data Storage, a South San Francisco, CA-based technology company building end-to-end DNA data storage solutions, raised $155m in seed financing.
Backers included ARCH Venture Partners, Deerfield Management, Bezos Expeditions, Tao Capital Partners, Rsquared VC, Earth Foundry, In-Q-Tel (IQT), and others.
The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts.
Founded as synthetic biology company Twist Bioscience spinout, Atlas is focused on commercializing data storage products that leverage the properties of synthetic DNA. The company leverages core technology that combines novel semiconductor chips and enzyme engineering to provide data center products to enterprise and government customers to meet the data storage demand of the AI era with low cost and scalable storage.
Under the terms of the contribution and license agreements, Twist assigned and licensed its DNA data storage technology to Atlas in exchange for Twist receiving a minority ownership interest upon close, an upfront cash payment and a secured promissory note. Twist retains an ownership stake in Atlas and may participate in the upside of DNA data storage through future technology and commercial milestone payments, and a revenue share through royalties on future sales of Atlas’ products and services. In addition, Twist will benefit from technology advancements made by Atlas where it applies to Twist’s product groups.
Emily Leproust, CEO and co-founder of Twist will serve on the board of directors of Atlas. George Kadifa, managing director of Sumeru Equity Partners, will serve as executive chairman of the Atlas board and Varun Mehta, will serve as CEO of Atlas. Mr. Mehta brings significant experience in the data storage industry and has led several successful startups, including Nimble Storage, which was acquired by Hewlett Packard. Twist co-founder and general manager of DNA data storage, Bill Banyai, Ph.D., will move to Atlas and serve as its CTO.
FinSMEs
05/05/2025