Cultivarium
Cultivarium is a nonprofit Focused Research Organization that develops open-source molecular and computational tools — including genetic toolkits, a microbial data portal, and the PRISM AI protocol-capture platform — to help life scientists work with non-model microorganisms for academic and industrial biotech applications.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2021
- HeadquartersWatertown, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Cultivarium does
Cultivarium is a nonprofit Focused Research Organization (FRO) operating under the Convergent Research incubator, headquartered in Watertown, Massachusetts. The company develops open-source tools for life scientists to expand access to non-model microorganisms — bacteria, fungi, archaea, and protists that lack the standardized genetic toolkits available for traditional model organisms. Its product portfolio centers on the Cultivarium Portal, a centralized platform aggregating organism information, culture data, sequencing data, and molecular data across 170,000+ species, alongside the "Lab Lore" community feature for sharing tacit experimental knowledge. The scientific toolkit includes the POSSUM and MACKEREL molecular toolkits (distributed via Addgene), MicrobeMod methylation-calling software, GenomeSPOT growth-condition prediction software, and the PRISM AI-powered lab assistant that converts audio/video of laboratory practice into timestamped multimodal protocols. Application-specific toolkits, such as the Ideonella sakaiensis genetic toolkit for PET plastic degradation, demonstrate the company's ability to move from foundational tool development into targeted commercial applications.
The company is led by CEO Henry Lee, PhD and CSO Nili Ostrov, PhD, with a Scientific Advisory Board including Prof. George Church (Harvard Medical School), Prof. Bogumil Karas (University of Western Ontario), and Prof. Scott Lenaghan (University of Tennessee). Cultivarium's revenue model is hybrid: a $10M three-year grant from the Wellcome Trust (awarded April 2025) underwrites core R&D for the Fungi and Archaea Tools Project, supplemented by technology licensing for commercial applications, fee-for-service laboratory work (organism isolation through strain development), and custom consulting. The go-to-market combines a self-serve community portal with enterprise-grade services sold through grant collaborations and direct engagement with academic and industrial biotech customers, including Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The PRISM platform extends the business into a freemium/paid subscription model, opening a potential SaaS-style revenue stream independent of the core grants-and-services model.
Cultivarium firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Cultivarium
- Legal name
- Cultivarium
- Website
- https://cultivarium.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2021
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Cultivarium is a nonprofit Focused Research Organization that develops open-source molecular and computational tools — including genetic toolkits, a microbial data portal, and the PRISM AI protocol-capture platform — to help life scientists work with non-model microorganisms for academic and industrial biotech applications.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Cultivarium industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Synthetic Biology Research Tools
- NAICS
- Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) (541714)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Laboratory Analytical Instruments (3826)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Synthetic Biology & Genetic Circuit Design Platforms (pathway engineering, chassis development) (HLAAAIAD)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Transformation & Tissue Culture Platforms (Plant regeneration, delivery systems) (AFABALAH), Molecular Biology & Genomics Instruments (PCR/qPCR, Sequencing, Microarrays) (HLAGAIAF)
Keywords
Where Cultivarium is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Watertown
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
Cultivarium business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Grant Funding: Cultivarium receives significant grant funding from organizations like Wellcome Trust ($10M for a three-year project on fungi and archaea tools). As a nonprofit, funding supports core R&D operations.
- Technology Licensing: Licensing of tools including POSSUM Toolkit, MACKEREL Toolkit, MicrobeMod, and GenomeSPOT for commercial applications. Assets available via Addgene for molecular tools.
- Laboratory Services: Fee-for-service laboratory work ranging from organism isolation to strain development, supporting researchers through their toughest R&D challenges.
- Custom Consulting: Cross-disciplinary scientific team available for project-specific consulting engagements.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Monthly | Free tier with limited access |
| Subscription | Monthly | Paid subscription tier |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels6 records
Cultivarium product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Cultivarium develops open-source molecular toolkits, computational software, and an AI-powered lab protocol assistant to help life scientists culture, engineer, and study non-model microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists). Its offerings include the Cultivarium Portal aggregating organism data, the PRISM AI protocol capture platform, and toolkits such as POSSUM and MACKEREL for plasmid and promoter engineering, distributed via Addgene and GitHub alongside fee-for-service laboratory work.
Product overview
Cultivarium is a Focused Research Organization that creates a suite of tools for life scientists to work with non-model microorganisms. The core product is the Cultivarium Portal, a platform that aggregates organism information, culture data, sequencing, and molecular data for bacteria, fungi, archaea, and protists. This is complemented by PRISM, an AI-powered lab assistant that captures experimental footage and generates multimodal protocols. The tool portfolio includes open-access molecular toolkits (POSSUM Toolkit for functional plasmids, MACKEREL Toolkit for promoter-RBS identification) and software tools (MicrobeMod for methylation calling, GenomeSPOT for growth condition prediction). Additional application-specific toolkits address particular organisms such as Ideonella sakaiensis for plastic degradation research.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- PRISM: AI-powered lab assistant that captures what experimentalists actually see and do in the laboratory, transforming traditional text protocols into rich, multimodal records of scientific practice.
Products and services
- Cultivarium Portal A one-stop-shop portal for microbial research that aggregates organism information, culture data, sequencing results, and molecular data for bacteria, fungi, archaea, and protists. Maps IDs between common databases and provides Lab Lore community discussion features for sharing tacit knowledge.
- PRISM An AI-powered lab assistant that captures audio and video from experiments and transforms them into rich, timestamped, step-by-step protocols with AI-suggested edits and inconsistency checks, available with free and paid subscription tiers.
- POSSUM Toolkit An open-access plasmid toolkit that identifies functional plasmids across diverse microbial organisms by testing promoter-RBS-plasmid combinations at scale, distributed via Addgene.
- MACKEREL Toolkit An open-access toolkit for identifying functional promoter-RBS (ribosome binding site) combinations in non-model organisms, distributed via Addgene.
- MicrobeMod Open-source software for methylation calling that can be applied to any prokaryotic genome to understand epigenetic modifications, available on GitHub.
- GenomeSPOT Open-source software that predicts growth conditions for prokaryotic organisms based on amino acid composition analysis, available on GitHub.
- Ideonella sakaiensis Genetic Toolkit Genetic engineering toolkit for the PET-degrading bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis (Piscinibacter sakaiensis), including functional plasmids, transposon system, and a genome-wide barcoded mutant library of 353,908 strains.
- Vibrio natriegens POSSUM Toolkit POSSUM toolkit variant specifically tested for Vibrio natriegens, a rapidly growing bacterium used for cloning applications.
- Laboratory Services Fee-for-service laboratory work ranging from organism isolation to strain development, supporting academic and industrial researchers through their R&D challenges.
- Custom Consulting Cross-disciplinary team of scientists available to consult on project-specific needs for academic and industrial clients.
Quantifiable outcome
- Identified functional plasmid for Ideonella sakaiensis in days rather than a year of searching
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Cultivarium
Customer profileNamed customers5 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Cultivarium technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration2 records
AI capability8 records
Feature8 records
Cultivarium partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial MicrobiologycoreVictoria Sajtovich from the Max Planck Institute collaborated with Cultivarium to develop the first functional plasmid system for Ideonella sakaiensis. This collaboration demonstrated Cultivarium's ability to rapidly identify working genetic tools for non-model organisms.
- Baylor College of MedicinecoreFelipe-Andres Piedra at Baylor College of Medicine collaborated on developing sensitive PET degradation assays and used Cultivarium's genome-wide mutant library to profile Ideonella's genetic response to PET. Together they uncovered genetic pathways for PET degradation and bioplastic production.
- AddgenecoreAddgene distributes Cultivarium's molecular toolkits including the POSSUM Toolkit and MACKEREL Toolkit to the global molecular biology research community.
Scale indicators5 records
Recent moves5 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Cultivarium competitors and assessment
Company assessmentMarket position
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Cultivarium social profiles
Digital presenceCultivarium financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Cultivarium leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles5 records
Cultivarium funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors1 record
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Cultivarium M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Cultivarium
What does Cultivarium do?
Cultivarium develops open-source molecular toolkits, computational software, and an AI-powered lab protocol assistant to help life scientists culture, engineer, and study non-model microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists). Its offerings include the Cultivarium Portal aggregating organism data, the PRISM AI protocol capture platform, and toolkits such as POSSUM and MACKEREL for plasmid and promoter engineering, distributed via Addgene and GitHub alongside fee-for-service laboratory work.
Is Cultivarium a public or private company?
Cultivarium is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Cultivarium founded?
Cultivarium was founded in 2021. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Cultivarium based?
Cultivarium is headquartered in Watertown, United States, in the North America region.
How does Cultivarium make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Grant Funding is the primary driver. The others are technology Licensing, laboratory Services and custom Consulting.
Does Cultivarium have an API?
No public API is recorded for Cultivarium.
What industry is Cultivarium in?
Cultivarium's product category is Synthetic Biology Research Tools. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HLAAAIAD, Synthetic Biology & Genetic Circuit Design Platforms (pathway engineering, chassis development), with a secondary code of AFABALAH, Transformation & Tissue Culture Platforms (Plant regeneration, delivery systems). Its NAICS code is 541714 and its SIC code is 7372.