Drugs versus chemicals

For most of the 9 years that C&EN has published its 10 Start-Ups to Watch feature—which appears this week on page 16—we’ve assessed drug and materials companies by separate financial standards. Start-ups focused on drugs typically raise much more money than materials firms in series A or other early funding rounds. For example, Alltrna, one of the three drug discovery firms we profiled last year, had $50 million in investor funding when it launched in 2021. The other two each raked in $100 million or more in their early investment rounds. By contrast, the chemical, agricultural, and clean technology start-ups we profiled were lucky to hit $30 million in their series A investment rounds, the stage in which companies typically transition from a promising concept to a full-fledged business. Sure, 10 companies are a small sample. But figures from the venture capital data firm PitchBook point to the same dichotomy.