Magmatic Bio
Solving the critical metals shortage with synthetic biology
Website: https://magmatic.bio
Cover Block
PUBLIC
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Magmatic Bio (legal: MAGMATIC Bio GmbH) |
| Tagline | Solving the critical metals shortage with synthetic biology |
| Headquarters | Vienna, Austria |
| Founded | 2022 |
| Stage | Pre-Seed |
| Business Model | B2B |
| Industry | Cleantech / Climatetech |
| Technology | Biotech / Life Sciences (engineered metal-binding proteins) |
| Geography | Western Europe |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2): Oliver Siegel, Jorg Herwanger |
| Funding Label | Pre-Seed (one round disclosed, March 2024, amount undisclosed) [Crunchbase, 2026] |
Links
PUBLIC
- Website: https://magmatic.bio/
- LinkedIn (CEO profile, company page not separately confirmed): https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliver-siegel-0198ba54/
Executive Summary
PUBLIC
Magmatic Bio is a Vienna-based synthetic biology company engineering custom proteins that bind specific metals out of complex industrial mixtures, with the stated aim of refining battery-grade lithium and nickel without conventional solvent extraction [Magmatic.bio] [Dealroom.co, 2026]. The company was founded in 2022 and operates as MAGMATIC Bio GmbH out of Breitenfelder Gasse 14/4, 1080 Vienna, with company register number FN 608236s [Magmatic.bio]. Its scientific premise draws on extremophile microorganisms whose proteins have evolved to discriminate between chemically similar metal ions, which the company adapts into selective separation reagents for mining and recycling feedstocks [Magmatic.bio] [CB Insights, 2026]. Co-founder and CEO Oliver Siegel previously led AFFiRiS AG as Chief Executive Officer from March 2015 and earlier ran pharmaceuticals coverage at NM Rothschild & Sons in London, while co-founder Jorg Herwanger holds a PhD in Geology from Imperial College London (1997 to 2000) and brings prior roles at Sharp Reflections and Heriot-Watt University [OMICS International, 2026] [RocketReach, 2026]. The disclosed capital base is a single undisclosed-amount round dated March 2024, with Nucleus Capital named as the investor backing the company [Crunchbase, 2026]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the questions worth tracking are whether Magmatic publishes a named pilot partner in lithium or nickel processing, whether it converts the pre-seed into a priced seed with a syndicate, and whether protein-binding selectivity translates from bench to industrial throughput at the grades battery makers actually require.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Crunchbase, CB Insights, Dealroom, the company website, and LinkedIn.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Pre-Seed |
| Business Model | B2B |
| Industry / Vertical | Cleantech / Climatetech, critical minerals processing |
| Technology Type | Synthetic biology / engineered proteins |
| Geography | Western Europe (Austria) |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | 2 co-founders |
| Funding | Pre-Seed, one disclosed round (Mar 2024), amount undisclosed |
Company Overview
PUBLIC
Magmatic Bio was incorporated in Vienna in 2022 as MAGMATIC Bio GmbH, with Oliver Siegel listed as Managing Director on the company's contact page and the entity registered under FN 608236s and UID ATU79808736 [Magmatic.bio]. The company describes its scientific origin in unusually direct language for a deep-tech startup: a page titled "Inspiration" explains that the founders were drawn to subsurface microorganisms living "in the harshest, most extreme environments" across temperature, pH, pressure, radiation and salinity gradients, and to the metal-handling proteins those organisms evolved [Magmatic.bio]. That biological starting point, rather than a chemistry or mining-engineering starting point, is the throughline of the company's positioning.
The public milestone trail is short and consistent with a pre-seed deep-tech profile. Crunchbase records a single financing event dated 31 March 2024, structured as a convertible note, with the amount obfuscated on the public profile [Crunchbase, 2026]. Nucleus Capital, a European climate and bio-focused early-stage investor, is the named backer in the structured record. Dealroom and CB Insights both list the company under critical-metals refining and recycling rather than under pharmaceuticals or therapeutics, and PatSnap's Synapse database records zero medical patents and zero clinical results associated with Magmatic Bio as of its 23 September 2025 update, which is consistent with a non-therapeutic application of synthetic biology [PatSnap, Sep 2025] [Dealroom.co, 2026] [CB Insights, 2026].
Beyond the two co-founders, public team signals point to a small operational core. Klemens Slunitschek is listed as Principal Chemical Engineer, and Azul María Giménez Moreno is listed as Project Developer, Critical Minerals [RocketReach, 2026]. No open job postings were surfaced from the company's careers presence or major applicant tracking hosts at the time of this report, which is typical for a pre-seed entity hiring through founder networks rather than public funnels.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Crunchbase, Dealroom, CB Insights, PatSnap, and the company's own register filings.
Product and Technology
MIXED
Magmatic's product thesis is that selectivity, not throughput, is the binding constraint in critical-metals supply, and that engineered proteins are a better selectivity tool than the solvent-extraction chemistry the industry has used for decades. The company's homepage states that Magmatic "designs and builds custom synthetic proteins that bind metals in complex mixtures with atomic precision, solving metal separation problems and advancing full circularity in critical minerals" [Magmatic.bio] [PUBLIC]. That framing is reinforced by independent ecosystem listings that describe the company as engineering metal-binding proteins to "separate and refine critical minerals for low-impact, circular supply chains" [Freeway PHX] [Startup Estonia] [PUBLIC].
Two initial application targets have been disclosed through third-party databases. Dealroom describes the company's first use cases as upgrading crude lithium intermediates into battery-grade lithium carbonate, and producing battery-grade nickel sulphate without cobalt solvent extraction [Dealroom.co, 2026] [PUBLIC]. CB Insights' company profile specifies the same focus on metal regeneration in mining and recycling using protein-based separation [CB Insights, 2026] [PUBLIC]. Both are large-volume battery-cathode inputs where impurity tolerances are tight and incumbent solvent-extraction routes are capital-intensive and chemically aggressive, which is the conditions under which a more selective bio-based reagent could earn its place in a flowsheet.
What the public record does not yet include is a disclosed pilot customer, an industrial throughput figure, a published selectivity benchmark, or any patent filings under the Magmatic name (PatSnap's medical-patent index returned zero, and no broader IP record has been published) [PatSnap, Sep 2025] [PUBLIC]. The team composition (a Principal Chemical Engineer and a Project Developer for Critical Minerals alongside the co-founders) is consistent with bench-to-pilot translation work rather than commercial deployment [RocketReach, 2026] [PUBLIC]. Tech-stack specifics beyond "engineered proteins for selective metal binding" are not publicly described, and any inference about expression systems, host organisms, or immobilization chemistry would be speculation.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Magmatic.bio, Dealroom, CB Insights, and two independent ecosystem databases.
Market Research and Opportunity
PUBLIC
The market matters now because battery-grade lithium and nickel are simultaneously scarce, geopolitically concentrated, and chemically difficult to refine to the purities that cathode makers require. Magmatic's two named entry points (lithium carbonate upgrading and cobalt-free nickel sulphate production) sit on exactly that pain point [Dealroom.co, 2026].
The public record on Magmatic does not include a company-cited TAM, SAM or SOM figure, and no third-party report has been published with sizing specific to protein-based metal separation. Rather than fabricate a number, this report restricts the market discussion to what the cited sources actually establish: that ecosystem databases in three separate jurisdictions (Austria via Dealroom, Phoenix via Freeway PHX, and Estonia via Startup Estonia) classify Magmatic in the critical minerals supply-chain category, which is the same category investors and policymakers have flagged as supply-constrained for the energy transition [Dealroom.co] [Freeway PHX] [Startup Estonia]. The framing of "low-impact, circular supply chains" used by the ecosystem listings places the company at the intersection of primary mining (where selectivity reduces reagent and energy intensity) and recycling (where selectivity is the gating problem when feedstocks are mixed black-mass streams).
Demand drivers visible in the cited research are the shift from solvent extraction toward lower-chemical-intensity refining, and the cathode industry's preference for nickel sulphate produced without cobalt-coupled extraction routes, which is the specific application Dealroom attributes to Magmatic [Dealroom.co, 2026]. Adjacent and substitute markets include direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies, ion-exchange resins, and conventional hydrometallurgy, each of which is an alternative that an industrial buyer would evaluate against a protein-based offering. Regulatory tailwinds in the EU, where Magmatic is headquartered, include the Critical Raw Materials Act framework that prioritizes domestic processing capacity, although no specific Magmatic engagement with that regulatory channel has been publicly disclosed.
| Sizing reference | What the cited source actually says | Citation |
|---|---|---|
| Application scope | Battery-grade lithium carbonate upgrading and cobalt-extraction-free nickel sulphate production | [Dealroom.co, 2026] |
| Category placement | "Critical minerals" / "circular supply chains" classification across three ecosystem databases | [Dealroom.co] [Freeway PHX] [Startup Estonia] |
Analyst takeaway: the absence of a company-cited TAM is a reporting gap rather than evidence of a small market; the application set Magmatic has named (cathode-grade lithium and nickel) sits inside categories that public industry literature consistently treats as supply-constrained, but readers should ask Magmatic directly for its own SAM construction before underwriting one.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Application scope confirmed by Dealroom and CB Insights; no third-party sizing report specific to Magmatic was located.
Competitive Landscape
MIXED
Magmatic is positioned as a biology-first entrant in a category historically owned by hydrometallurgy and, more recently, by direct lithium extraction startups; its named peers in the structured record are Endolith and Allonnia, both of which apply biology to metals problems from different angles.
| Company | Positioning | Stage / Funding | Notable Differentiator | Source | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Magmatic Bio | Engineered metal-binding proteins for selective separation, focused on battery-grade lithium and nickel | Pre-Seed, one disclosed round Mar 2024 (amount undisclosed), Nucleus Capital named | Protein-level selectivity drawn from extremophile biology; cobalt-free nickel sulphate route | [Magmatic.bio] [Dealroom.co, 2026] [Crunchbase, 2026] | | Endolith | Microbial bioleaching to improve metal recovery from ore bodies, with a focus on copper and other base metals | Listed as competitor in structured competitor set | Whole-organism bioleaching at the mine face rather than protein-level separation downstream | [CB Insights, 2026] | | Allonnia | Synthetic biology platform for environmental contaminants and metals separation, spun out of Ginkgo Bioworks ecosystem | Listed as competitor in structured competitor set | Broader bio-platform scope across pollutants and metals; established commercial partnerships | [CB Insights, 2026] |
The segment map has three layers that matter for Magmatic's positioning. The incumbents are the integrated hydrometallurgical refiners and the specialty-chemical houses that supply solvent-extraction reagents; they own the installed base and the customer relationships at every cathode precursor plant, and they will not be displaced by a switch-out, only by a flowsheet redesign at a new plant or a debottlenecking retrofit at an existing one. The challengers are direct lithium extraction startups (sorbent-based and membrane-based), which have raised substantially more capital than Magmatic and are several years ahead in pilot deployment, although they target a different point in the lithium flowsheet (brine to crude intermediate) rather than Magmatic's stated point (crude intermediate to battery-grade carbonate) [Dealroom.co, 2026]. The adjacent biology-based players are Endolith and Allonnia: Endolith works at the bioleaching end (getting metal out of rock with microbes), which is upstream of Magmatic's separation step; Allonnia is closer in technique but broader in scope, with the resource advantage that comes from being inside the Ginkgo Bioworks orbit.
Where Magmatic has a defensible edge today: the specific application framing of cobalt-free nickel sulphate is unusually concrete for a pre-seed company, and selectivity is genuinely the right problem statement for protein engineering to attack. The European location is also relevant given EU policy momentum on domestic critical-minerals processing capacity. Whether that edge is durable depends on two things the public record does not yet show: the strength of the IP position around the specific binding proteins, and whether the binding-and-elution cycle works at industrial throughput without protein degradation. Both are bench-to-pilot questions, not investor questions.
Where Magmatic is most exposed: Allonnia's platform breadth and Ginkgo-adjacent infrastructure mean it can run more design-build-test cycles in parallel, and Endolith's upstream position means it could partner directly with miners who would otherwise be Magmatic's eventual customers. Magmatic also does not own a distribution channel into cathode precursor plants, and the buying centre at those plants is conservative by construction. The most plausible 18-month competitive scenario: winner if Magmatic announces a named pilot with a European cathode precursor or recycler and converts pre-seed conviction into a priced seed with a syndicate investor on the cap table; loser if the seed extension drags into 2026 without a public pilot and a better-capitalized biology-based competitor lands the cathode-grade nickel use case first.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitor names confirmed by CB Insights; competitor stage and funding details not independently re-verified in this pass.
Opportunity
PUBLIC
The size of the prize is the chance to become the default selective-separation layer for the battery-metals refining flowsheet in Europe.
The headline opportunity. If Magmatic's proteins do what the company says they do (bind specific metals out of complex mixtures with selectivity high enough to hit cathode-grade purities) the company is positioned to insert a single unit operation into the lithium and nickel refining flowsheets that displaces multi-stage solvent extraction [Magmatic.bio] [Dealroom.co, 2026]. That is not a thin-slice software outcome; it is an industrial-infrastructure outcome, where a successful technology gets specified into every new precursor plant for a decade. The cited evidence does not yet prove Magmatic will reach that outcome, but it does establish that the company has chosen the two highest-volume, highest-value entry points in the cathode supply chain (battery-grade lithium carbonate and cobalt-extraction-free nickel sulphate) rather than a niche metal where the addressable market would cap out early [Dealroom.co, 2026].
Growth scenarios.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| European cathode anchor | Magmatic lands a named pilot with a European cathode precursor or battery recycler and is written into the EU Critical Raw Materials Act qualifying-project pipeline | Public pilot announcement plus a priced seed with a strategic on the cap table | EU policy is actively prioritizing domestic processing and Magmatic's stated applications match cathode-grade specifications [Dealroom.co, 2026] |
| Recycling first, mining second | The first commercial revenue comes from black-mass recycling rather than primary refining, where feedstock variability makes selectivity more valuable | Partnership with a battery recycler operating in the EU | Recycling streams are exactly the "complex mixtures" Magmatic's homepage describes its proteins as designed for [Magmatic.bio] |
| Platform play across metals | The protein design capability extends from lithium and nickel to copper, cobalt, or rare earths, becoming a multi-product separation platform | A second disclosed application beyond the initial lithium and nickel targets | The company's framing draws on extremophile biology generally rather than a single metal-specific protein, which is consistent with platform extensibility [Magmatic.bio] |
What compounding looks like. The flywheel in protein-based separation is design data: every binding protein the team designs, expresses, and characterizes against a real industrial feedstock improves the next design cycle, and the data does not exist anywhere else because no incumbent has reason to generate it. If Magmatic accumulates a binding-and-elution dataset across enough metal-feedstock combinations, the second and third applications get cheaper and faster than the first, which is the unit-economics shape that makes platform companies rather than single-product companies. The public record does not yet show that flywheel turning at scale; it shows the inputs (a chemical engineer, a critical-minerals project developer, two named application targets) being assembled [RocketReach, 2026] [Dealroom.co, 2026].
The size of the win. No third-party report sizes the protein-based metal-separation category specifically, so any number here would be invented. What can be said honestly is that the cathode precursor market sits inside the broader battery-materials supply chain that public-market and venture investors have repeatedly underwritten at multi-billion-dollar valuations, and that a company which becomes a specified unit operation in that flowsheet (scenario, not a forecast) would plausibly be valued against direct lithium extraction comparables rather than against early-stage synbio comparables. The honest investor question is whether Magmatic can get from pre-seed convertible note to that specified-unit-operation status before a better-capitalized peer does, and the next 12 to 18 months of pilot announcements will set the answer.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Application targets and category placement confirmed by Dealroom, CB Insights, and the company website; scenario plausibility is analytical, not a forecast, and is labelled as such.
Sources
PUBLIC
[Magmatic.bio] Magmatic - Solving the critical metals shortage with synthetic biology | https://magmatic.bio/
[Magmatic.bio] Contact - Magmatic Bio | https://www.magmatic.bio/contact
[Magmatic.bio] Inspiration - Magmatic Bio | https://www.magmatic.bio/inspiration
[Crunchbase, 2026] Magmatic Bio - Funding, Financials, Valuation & Investors | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/magmatic-bio/company_financials
[Crunchbase] Magmatic Bio - Financial Details | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/magmatic-bio/financial_details
[CB Insights, 2026] Magmatic - Products, Competitors, Financials, Employees, Headquarters Locations | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/magmatic
[CB Insights] Magmatic CEO, Founder, Key Executive Team, Board of Directors & Employees | https://www.cbinsights.com/company/magmatic/people
[Dealroom.co, 2026] MAGMATIC Bio company information, funding & investors | https://app.dealroom.co/companies/magmatic_1/team
[Freeway PHX] Magmatic Bio company information, funding & investors, Phoenix Startup Ecosystem Dashboard | https://ecosystem.freewayphx.com/companies/magmatic_bio
[Startup Estonia] Magmatic Bio company information, funding & investors, Estonia Innovation Ecosystem | https://ecosystem.startupestonia.ee/companies/magmatic_bio
[PatSnap, Sep 2025] Magmatic Bio - Drug pipelines, Patents, Clinical trials - Synapse | https://synapse.patsnap.com/organization/096f2519b82066c350d54c4e07dc70e1
[RocketReach, 2026] Oliver Siegel Email & Phone Number, Magmatic Bio Co-Founder, CEO Contact Information | https://rocketreach.co/oliver-siegel-email_137741862
[LinkedIn, 2026] Oliver Siegel - Magmatic Bio | https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliver-siegel-0198ba54/
[LinkedIn, 2026] Klemens Slunitschek - Magmatic Bio | https://www.linkedin.com/in/klemensslunitschek/
[OMICS International, 2026] Oliver Siegel biographical record (AFFiRiS AG, Rothschild) | profile reference
[Bloomberg Markets] Oliver Siegel, Affiris AG: Profile and Biography | https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/19057448
Articles about Magmatic Bio
- Magmatic Bio Wants to Brew Battery-Grade Lithium Inside a Vienna Lab — The Austrian seed-stage startup is engineering metal-binding proteins to replace solvent extraction in lithium and nickel refining.