Biotech company Imperagen announced on Thursday a £5 million ($6.7 million) seed round led by PXN Ventures, with participation from IQ Capital and Northern Gritstone. The company was founded in 2021 by Manchester Institute of Biotechnology scientists Dr. Andrew Currin, Dr. Tim Eyes, and Dr. Andy Almond and spun out of the university.

The startup seeks to improve enzyme engineering by making it faster, more efficient, and less costly than the slower, more physical, trial-and-error-focused process used now.

Imperagen is using three core technologies as it seeks to redefine enzyme engineering. Specifically, it uses a quantum physics-based simulation instead of trial-and-error enzyme mutations in a lab. Imperagen predicts the behavior of enzyme variants on a computer using advanced quantum physics modeling that can explore millions of mutations, the company said. Then it translates this information into its custom AI models, trained on the enzyme problems Imperagen seeks to explore. Finally, to retain its AI models, Imperagen uses robots and automation to generate experimental data, which is fed back to the AI model, in a process called closed-loop simulation.

Enzymes are incredibly important across many industries, especially in pharmaceuticals, as they are essential to drug development. Startups like Imperagen are hoping to speed up enzyme engineering because it can have a domino effect, making, for example, drug discovery faster and more efficient. Enzymes are also used in sectors like food, biofuels, and agriculture. Experts in sustainability are also looking to enzymes — and the AI technologies surrounding them — to make industrial production and manufacturing more sustainable. 

Others in this space include Biomatter, Cradle Bio, and Absci.

On Thursday, Imperagen also announced that Guy Levy-Yurista will assume the role of CEO. Speaking to TechCrunch, he said that right now, the process of enzyme engineering is falling short, where even many new AI-powered technologies can pass trial and error but fail when put into practice on an industrial scale.

Imperagen hopes its tech will make enzyme development “faster, more reliable, and more commercially accessible, helping companies bring better bio-based products to market without the long timelines and uncertainty that have traditionally held the field back,” he told TechCrunch. 

Levy-Yurista has a background in AI, life sciences, and enterprise technology. Though the founders will remain at the company, Levy-Yurista was brought in to help build out its new technologies, including a vertical AI infrastructure for biocatalysis (a process that accelerates chemical reactions using natural catalysts like enzymes), while scaling the startup’s AI strategy, commercial models, and industrial partnerships. 

The company has raised £8.5 million ($11.42 million) in funding to date and the fresh capital will be used to hire more AI specialists, put toward research and development, expand its experimental lab capabilities, and build a go-to-market function within the next two years. 

“Ultimately, Imperagen hopes wider use of engineered enzymes will help industries reliably produce products that are cleaner, safer and better for people and the planet, while also making commercial sense for the companies that adopt them,” Levy-Yurista said. 

Scapia, an Indian startup that combines travel booking with co-branded credit cards and mobile payments, has raised $63 million in a funding round led by General Catalyst, with existing investors Peak XV Partners and Z47 also participating. The deal comes despite a broader slowdown in fintech dealmaking.

The all-equity round assigns the startup a post-money valuation of more than $500 million, according to a source familiar with the matter, more than doubling its valuation from around $200 million in April 2025. The four-year-old outfit has raised $126 million to date from investors.

That General Catalyst, one of the most prominent U.S. venture firms, is leading the round suggests that India’s travel-focused fintech market is drawing serious attention well beyond its home region.

The funding also comes as investors globally grow more selective in fintech bets after years of aggressive funding. In India, fintech funding remained largely flat in Q1 2026, while the number of deals fell by more than half from a year earlier as investors concentrated capital into fewer, larger deals, per a recent report by Tracxn. By contrast, the U.S. saw fintech funding grow sharply, driven by large rounds for a handful of companies in areas including AI and crypto infrastructure.

Investors are betting Scapia can benefit from growing demand among younger Indians for apps that combine payments and travel bookings. Founded in 2022 by former Flipkart executive Anil Goteti, the startup’s app combines co-branded credit cards, UPI-based payments, travel bookings, and commerce in one place. UPI — India’s government-backed real-time payments network and one of the most widely used digital payment systems in the world — is central to how younger Indians move money today.

Over the past year, Scapia said flight bookings on its platform grew nearly six times, while hotel bookings increased about eightfold, with smaller Indian cities driving a growing share of demand. Customer growth also rose sevenfold during the same period, the startup said, without disclosing absolute figures.

Scapia has seen strong adoption among younger travelers who increasingly want flexible travel rewards and integrated payment options instead of traditional credit card perks, Goteti said in an interview. He added that one-third of users now prefer airport dining and shopping rewards over lounge access.

“Lounges are getting quite crowded,” Goteti told TechCrunch. “People actually are looking for an experience outside the lounge.”

Scapia also offers a dual-network co-branded credit card using both Visa and RuPay — a government-backed Indian payment network — allowing users to access card payments and UPI-linked credit through a single statement, credit line, and repayment flow. Moreover, the startup partners with Federal Bank and BOBCARD to offer co-branded cards and plans to add another banking partner in the coming months, Goteti said.

The Bengaluru-based startup operates in a growing market for travel-focused financial products in India, competing with companies like Niyo — another Indian startup that combines banking and travel features — and travel platform Ixigo, while global fintech firms including Revolut are also eyeing the country.

Scapia, which has about 250 employees, said the fresh funding will go toward expanding its product offerings and hiring more AI-focused engineering and product talent as competition intensifies in India’s consumer fintech market.

Beauty and wellness booking marketplace Fresha has announced an $80 million investment from KKR’s Next Generation Technology Growth fund, valuing the London-based company at more than $1 billion. The investment is notable for coming from KKR’s growth equity arm, which targets companies with proven business models that are still in aggressive expansion mode — a sign that Fresha is seen as past the risky early stages and ready to scale.

The London-based company, founded in 2015, has grown significantly over the last few years. When TechCrunch covered a Fresha fundraising round in 2021, the company had 60,000 businesses on its platform and was working with more than 150,000 professionals across 120 countries. Today, the platform counts more than 140,000 businesses and says those businesses are booking more than 35 million appointments a month through Fresha. That volume — more than a billion appointments annually — puts it among the larger scheduling platforms of any kind, not just within beauty and wellness.

The company has now raised $285 million to date and says it will use the new capital to expand to more countries and develop AI features.