LivingFilters has raised SEK 4.6 million in new investment to accelerate the development of its AI-designed protein technology for the detection and removal of harmful pollutants from wastewater. Together with approximately SEK 6 million in project funding from Vinnova, the new capital will enable the company to move from laboratory development towards validation in real-world environments.
The investment round was led by Turbine Capital, with participation from Skåne Ventures and angel investors Philip Larsson and Johan Billgren, both affiliated with SAM Invest. Existing angel investor Peter Neubauer also participated.
Combined with the Vinnova funding, the investment gives Living Filters new resources to develop and validate a technology with the potential to change how difficult micropollutants are detected and removed from wastewater.
The Vinnova-funded project brings together partners from academia, industry and the water sector, including Lund University, NSVA and RecoLab in Helsingborg.
From the lab to real wastewater
For LivingFilters, the funding marks an important transition. The company is now moving beyond laboratory development to test its technology under real-world conditions.
LivingFilters is developing both a probe-based solution for rapid detection of pollutants and protein binders for high-specificity filter solutions. The next phase includes validation using real wastewater at RecoLab in Helsingborg.
“The test bed at RecoLab is critical to validate and stress test our technology in the intended environment ,” Mikaela says.
The goal is to demonstrate that the technology can offer a more targeted and resource-efficient way of selectively addressing some of the most challenging pollutants found in water, including pharmaceutical residues, pesticides, PFAS and heavy metals.
Across Europe, water utilities face growing pressure to remove an increasing number of contaminants while simultaneously reducing energy consumption and operational costs. Technologies such as activated carbon, ozonation and membrane filtration can be effective, but they are largely non-selective and can therefore be costly and difficult to adapt as new pollutants emerge and regulations evolve.
LivingFilters is taking a different approach.
AI-designed proteins that target specific pollutants
At the heart of the company’s technology are proteins designed from scratch using artificial intelligence and computational protein design. Each protein can be engineered to bind selectively to a specific target molecule.
The resulting protein binders can be integrated into biosensors to detect contaminants or into filtration systems to capture and remove them.
“We design proteins on a computer and then validate and express them in the real world. The proteins are designed to target (in other words, bind to specific molecules. This means they can be used to detect or capture harmful substances in water and other liquids,” Mikaela explains.
The technology has its roots in the Baker Lab at the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, the world’s leading research environment for computational protein design. Living Filters’ co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Amijai Saragovi, comes directly from the Nobel Prize-winning lab.
While much of the commercial development around computational protein design has focused on pharmaceuticals, LivingFilters is applying the technology to environmental and industrial challenges.
“We may be among the first to use this technology for an industrial solution focused on environmental issues. Most companies working with it today are focused on drug development,” says Mikaela. “In that sense, what we are doing is quite unique.”
Building a platform for environmental pollutants
The company’s ambitions extend beyond individual contaminants. Because proteins can be designed for specific molecular targets, LivingFilters views the technology as a platform that could ultimately be adapted to address many different environmental pollutants.
“Our vision is to use this technology to tackle all kinds of environmental pollutants. These are molecules that have been difficult to capture for the past 25 years. With these resources, we believe we’ll be able to prove that we can develop solutions for them,” says Mikaela.
With SEK 4.6 million in new investment, substantial Vinnova funding and a network of research and industry partners behind, LivingFilters now has the resources to put its technology to a critical test: proving that AI-designed proteins can work not only in the lab, but for real-world wastewater treatment.
