Biomemory SAS, a company that focuses on developing DNA-based data storage devices, today announced it has raised $18 million in an early-stage funding to complete the development of the first generation of its storage appliance for use in data centers.

The Series A round was led by Crédit Mutuel Innovation and was joined by an existing investor the French government by way of Bpifrance. New investors participating in the round included Blast, Paris Business Angels, Sorbonne Venture, Adnexus, Prunay, Next Sequence and Accelerem.

Founded in 2021, Biomemory is best known for launching a DNA-based storage card last year, marking the first time such technology has been available for sale to the general public, the company said. Although the credit card-sized devices don’t have much storage, about a kilobyte of text data each, they serve as practical proof that molecular data storage is within reach.

According to Biomemory, data stored on these cards has a minimum lifespan of 150 years, so it will last a very long time compared with other storage. A typical DVD can last 30 to 100 years, whereas a solid-state drive, typical in modern computer systems, may only last five to seven years under regular use. The company said it hopes to extend the 150-year lifespan even longer in the future.

Instead of the traditional binary ones and zeroes, Biomemory DNA Cards and storage use a technique known as “molecular computing,” which uses synthetic DNA to store data. The information is represented by nucleotides, which are tiny organic molecules that are part of DNA. All DNA is made of four types of molecules – C, G, A and T. These can be encoded together to create messages.

“With our DNA storage technology, we’re not just addressing today’s data challenges — we’re building solutions that will sustain the ecosystem for the next century and beyond,” said Erfane Arwani, chief executive and co-founder of Biomemory. “By sharing this value with our partners and collaborators, we aim to collectively advance the sector and foster a thriving data storage ecosystem.”

With this funding, the company intends to advance development on a data center storage appliance that can be built into server racks. The company’s DNA-based storage solutions provide such massive data density, according to Biomemory, that they can potentially store all the data known to humanity in a single 19-inch data center rack.

Sustainability has also become a concern for much of the industry, with reports showing that data centers use 200 terawatt-hours of energy and generate 3.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. According to the company, the DNA-based storage technology is thousands of times less energy-intensive than current electronic systems.

Biomemory plans to release a 100-petabyte version of its storage device for data center use in 2026 that would take less energy and a much smaller spatial footprint than current storage technologies. The company said it plans to scale up its molecular storage technology to exabyte scale by 2030.

With this funding, the company said it intends to recruit further talent in molecular biology and engineering and accelerate its development of the product towards commercialization and advance research into broader molecular-based solutions. Biomemory also said it intends to build partnerships with industry leaders and cloud providers.

Photo: Biomemory