Key Investor Signals
8 of 8 redesigned enzyme variants expressed successfully
ProtoVela reports an industrial hydrolase project where all eight selected designs expressed successfully, melting temperature rose from 54°C to 75°C and yield reached three times the parent protein.
30+ years of protein-structure expertise
Dr. Kornelius Zeth has spent more than 30 years working in protein structural biology, including peer-reviewed research on membrane proteins, VDAC and antimicrobial-peptide transport systems.
Selected into BioPark Regensburg’s startup accelerator
BioPark Regensburg selected ProtoVela for its BioPark Jump accelerator, providing coaching, workshops and access to the region’s biotech, medtech and pharmaceutical network.
Other Positive Signals
- Collaboration network includes Trenzyme, LenioBio, University of Regensburg and TU Wien.
Team
Dr. Kornelius Zeth
Managing Director and Founder
- Dr. Kornelius Zeth brings deep structural-biology expertise from Roskilde University, spanning protein structure, bioinformatics and biochemical methods.
- His Technical University of Munich dissertation examined bacterial and human porin structures, establishing expertise in membrane proteins.
- Co-authored a 2018 Frontiers in Physiology review on high-resolution structural research into the voltage-dependent anion channel (VDAC).
Product
ProtoVela sells computational protein-engineering services to biotech, pharmaceutical and academic teams. Clients provide a protein sequence, structure or target profile; ProtoVela generates and ranks redesigns for stability, expression, solubility and activity before laboratory validation.
Two core design workflows
ProtoVela’s active workflows cover binder design and stability optimisation. Projects can target producibility, aggregation, thermal and long-term stability, proteolytic stability and sequence differentiation across peptides and proteins.
From sequence to ranked candidates
Its eight-step process covers sequence and structural analysis, mutation design, hotspot identification, AI and physics-based scoring, computational validation, ranking and selection of candidates for cloning.
Clients retain ownership of delivered designs
Clients retain ownership of the generative protein designs delivered under contract. Cloning, expression, purification and experimental testing are then carried out by the client or a laboratory partner.
Market Overview
Protein drugs and industrial enzymes can fail commercially even when their biological function is attractive because poor expression, aggregation, instability, or difficult processing makes them expensive or impractical to manufacture. These problems create demand for protein engineering that improves manufacturability before teams commit to larger experimental programs.
ProtoVela serves biotechnology and pharmaceutical R&D teams developing protein therapeutics, plus organisations engineering enzymes and other functional proteins. Its platform reduces the experimental search space by prioritising promising designs computationally before laboratory validation, creating a more targeted path from design to testing.
Grand View Research estimates the global monoclonal antibody market at $294.1B in 2026.
A 2025 review counted 1,516 antibody products in development and 144 FDA-approved antibody drugs worldwide.
Grand View Research projects the global protein-engineering market to reach $7.6B by 2030.
Grand View Research valued the global enzymes market at $14.9B in 2025 and projects $25.1B by 2033.
Comparable Outcomes
Codexis
Codexis developed engineered enzymes and its CodeEvolver protein-engineering platform for biocatalysis, including pharmaceutical manufacturing applications.\n\nCodexis listed on Nasdaq in April 2010 at $13 per share. With about 34.1M shares outstanding after the offering, the IPO implied a valuation of roughly $443M.
Absci
Absci built an integrated drug-creation platform combining synthetic biology and deep learning to discover and engineer protein therapeutics and create manufacturing cell lines.\n\nAbsci listed on Nasdaq in July 2021 at $16 per share. With about 90.4M shares outstanding after the offering, the IPO implied a valuation of roughly $1.4B.
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Sources
This profile was built from public company materials, ecosystem sources, market references, and professional profiles.