YDLabs Scale-Up Challenge 2026
Congratulations!
Meet the winners of the Scale-Up Challenge: LAMU and MeNow and Casenova.
About the challenge
The Scale-Up Challenge opened the fermentation floor to early-stage biotech startups, offering 170,000 ILS in scale-up services.
Our fermentation scientists assessed every submission against four aspects:
Scientific merit & novelty
An idea with a real, differentiated reason to exist
Readiness to scale
How ready the technology is for the bioreactor
Impact & commercial potential
A credible path to real-world impact and market
Clarity of vision
A focused, well-articulated plan for where you're headed.
The Winners
Three ideas worth scaling
Thank you to everyone who applied – we reviewed a lot of strong projects, and three rose above the rest…
LAMU
LAMU is addressing a key precision-fermentation challenge: removing mannan (carbohydrate) impurities without losing valuable protein in the process. Their reusable solution, currently in development, extends LAMU’s carbohydrate-binding platform into precision fermentation, aiming to simplify downstream processing and improve scale-up economics, with the platform already lab-proven for lactose removal in dairy. learn more.
100,000 ILS
FIRST PLACE
MeNow
An AI-driven discovery company focused on developing novel natural bioactive compounds for FOOD, COSMETICS & HEALTH.
learn more.
35,000 ILS
SECOND PLACE
Casenova
Casenova is developing a new approach to produce native-like, functional animal proteins by combining computational protein design and precision fermentation.
35,000 ILS
SECOND PLACE
We knew the applications would surprise us.
So we had a surprise of our own:
a second award at the 35,000 ILS level, for a third team we could not say no to.
Why we run this
We Are Transforming Ideas Into Industrial Reality
Our mission is to make fermentation processes accessible, cost-effective and user-friendly for every value-adding concept, whether it is within a startup, an established company, or a research endeavor.
We are building the fermentation capacity to move great ideas from the lab to the market.
The Scale-Up Challenge is how we put that to work for teams who have the science but not yet the steel. Every winner keeps 100% of their IP. We are not investors here. We are the facilitator.
15,000L
70+
100%
What winners receive
The winners receive a real path from lab to scale
Prizes are credited against actual YDLabs scale-up work.
Process Development
An optimized, reproducible protocol – a recipe ready for the bioreactor.
Demo Scale Fermentation
From lab-scale toward 15,000L, step by step – real data at real scale.
Downstream Processing
Stable, consistent, consistent material your team can rely on.
Full Documentation
Batch reports and a paper trail your investors and partners can rely on.
What happens next
We want to see them grow.
Over the coming months our team will work alongside LAMU, MeNow and Casenova on process development, pilot fermentation and the documentation that turns a promising result into something an investor, or a regulator can act on. We’ll be sharing what we learn along the way.
If you’re sitting on a biological process that works in a flask and you don’t know what happens at 15,000L –
that’s the conversation we are built for.
Hand us your science. We'll scale it up.
Why YDLabs
From lab-scale R&D to 15,000L demo production
YDLabs helps biotech companies bridge the gap between lab development and industrial production – from lab fermentation to consistent, scale-ready material, with reliable pilot-scale fermentation and downstream processing built on decades of experience.