Cauldron books $4.3 million Industry Growth Program grant to expand hyper-fermentation facility

Australian biomanufacturing startup Cauldron Ferm has secured $4.3 million in the first round of Industry Growth Program funding, helping the operation scale its signature ‘hyper-fermentation’ system.

Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic on Saturday announced the first six recipients of funding through the Industry Growth Program (IGP), a $392 million government scheme designed to help Australian startups grow and commercialise their operations.

Cauldron Ferm is the largest grant recipient so far, booking $4.3 million through the program’s commercialisation and growth stream, which contributes matched funding to projects capable of scaling to national and international markets.

Founded by Michele Stansfield and David Kestenbaum in 2022, Cauldron Ferm offers industrial fermentation processes for a wide variety of applications, spanning food proteins to cosmetics and next-generation vehicle fuels.

Unlike traditional industrial fermentation, which relies on enormous fed-batch processes, Cauldron Ferm says its condensed and precise systems allow for greater efficiency and reduced overhead costs for customers.

The Orange-based enterprise has already attracted significant investor interest, having already secured $20 million in funding over the past two years,

Cauldron Ferm is honoured to receive the funding, co-founder and CEO Stansfield said in a statement.

“This funding will support the expansion of our commercial demo facility in Orange, enabling us to prove our hyper-fermentation platform at an industrially relevant scale and in the process commercialise the technology of both Cauldron and its customers,” she said.

Partnership with the Department of Industry through the grant will help “advance Australia’s biomanufacturing capabilities, positioning Australia as a global leader in the bioeconomy and all from regional Australia,” Stansfield added.

Flying, foraging, and phish-stopping startups receive funding

Other funding recipients include aerial drone battery manufacturer Li–S Energy, which booked $1.7 million in backing.

Its successful grant funding speaks to the government’s desire to add value to Australia’s abundant lithium reserves, instead of simply shipping the critical mineral offshore.

“With the support of the IGP Grant we can build Australia’s first lithium metal foil manufacturing line,” Li-S Energy CEO Lee Finniear said Saturday.

Other successful grant recipients include Electrogenics Laboratories, which received $1 million in funding to commercialise new technologies allowing radiologists to monitor the dose of radiation patients are exposed to during treatment.

Digital watchdogs Brandsec booked a $231,000 grant, helping it develop the Unphish platform, a holistic technology suite designed to identify and automatically remove websites and social media profiles that impersonate real brands.

Forager Automation also secured $157,943 for the development of its berry-picking robotics system.

In a statement, Minister Husic called the funding a “milestone” achievement.

“Making more things here, strengthening supply chains and keeping our know-how and talent onshore where it belongs – that’s what a Future Made in Australia is all about,” he said.

“Great Aussie ideas can create great Aussie businesses and new Aussie jobs, but in their early years the ideas of these firms can come to a dead end without critical support.”

Application for funding through the program — itself funding priority sectors identified by the larger $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund — remains open on an ongoing basis.