Spiber has raised an impressive amount of funding to build out what the company calls “brewed proteins” for a variety of applications from fashion fabrics to automotive materials. The company sites the main obstacle holding up commercialization is the cost of production which is currently at $100 per kilogram, versus the market at less than $10 per kilogram. Spiber is bringing the cost down by creating a vertically integrated solution of technologies for designing proteins that includes gene synthesis, recombination, fermentation, purification, and spinning processes.