Melazyme raises $2 million to develop melanin and sweet proteins

Melazyme has raised $2 million in seed funding to push a precision-fermentation platform built around melanin and sweet proteins, a mix that says as much about where the sector is headed as it does about the startup itself. The Utah-based company, founded in 2025 by Perumal Gandhi and Bonney Oommen, is aiming beyond the old alternative-protein script of scale at any cost and into a narrower, more commercial lane where a single fermentation toolkit can support multiple products.

SeaX Ventures led the round, with Stellaris Venture Partners and Plug and Play Ventures also backing the company. Melazyme said the money will support platform development, production scale-up and early commercial deployment across its portfolio of target molecules. That matters because the company is not pitching one ingredient and calling it a day. It is building around premium melanin produced via microbial fermentation, alongside sweet proteins such as brazzein, giving it a shot at more than one market if the science and economics hold up.

The company’s melanin push is especially notable. Melazyme says the pigment is aimed at water remediation, metal extraction and next-gen cosmetics, while other industry coverage points to possible uses in UV protection, functional coatings, advanced materials, filtration and environmental remediation. That spread of applications is a far cry from the commodity-protein treadmill that has swallowed so many fermentation stories. A molecule with uses in beauty and industrial biotech gives investors a different kind of upside, and possibly a cleaner path to revenue than another me-too food protein.

Melazyme’s sweet-protein work fits the same logic. Sweet proteins have gained traction as sugar-reduction tools that can preserve taste, and Amai Proteins has helped show how quickly the category can move when product, regulation and commercial intent line up. Amai says its sweelin protein is about 3,000 times sweeter than sugar by weight and reported self-affirmed GRAS and FEMA-GRAS status in 2024. Melazyme is trying to build its own lane with brazzein, and the fact that it is also working with commercial partners suggests the company wants application development to move in step with lab progress.

For a sector that spent years chasing broad alternative-protein promises, Melazyme’s small seed round looks less like a splashy expansion and more like a discipline test. Kid Parchariyanon, SeaX’s managing partner, pointed to the founders’ rare experience in scaling precision-fermentation companies, which is exactly what this market rewards now: operators who know how to turn a platform into a product and a product into a business.