Cultivating Timber: Dutch Biotech Secures €2.1 Million to Grow Wood Without Trees
Wageningen, Thursday 4 June 2026
New Dawn Bio has secured €2.1 million to pioneer laboratory-grown timber from stem cells. Producing wood 10,000 times faster than traditional forestry, this innovation promises a sustainable, deforestation-free future.
A Biological Solution to an Industrial Crisis
The global timber industry faces an existential paradox: humanity consumes approximately 4 billion cubic metres of wood annually, whilst deforestation accounts for 11 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions [3]. With 5.3 million hectares of tropical forest lost each year, logging generates 8.1 gigatonnes of carbon emissions annually and threatens 30 per cent of all tree species with extinction [2][3]. The global wood and timber products market, valued at $992.43 billion in 2024, is ripe for disruption, particularly the sustainable wood segment which reached $150 billion in 2025 and is expanding at an annual rate of 7 per cent [2]. This equates to the sustainable segment representing roughly 15.114 per cent of the broader industry’s valuation [2]. Against this backdrop, on 3 June 2026, deeptech startup New Dawn Bio secured an oversubscribed €2.1 million—or roughly $2.4 million—pre-seed funding round to commercialise a deforestation-free alternative [1][2][3].
Re-engineering Nature from the Cellular Level
New Dawn Bio’s technological proposition relies on cellular agriculture, replacing traditional forestry with a highly controlled biological process [7]. The company harvests stem cells directly from trees and multiplies them within bioreactors, where the cells are guided to differentiate and harden into solid timber [4][6]. By integrating additive manufacturing and artificial intelligence to accelerate research, the startup can cultivate premium wood directly into its final, pre-determined shape [3][4]. This methodology operates up to 10,000 times faster than conventional forestry and eliminates the substantial material waste associated with traditional woodworking [1][4]. Consequently, the company projects that its process can reduce a customer’s cost of goods sold by up to 80 per cent [2][3]. This approach builds upon earlier academic milestones, such as a 3D bioprinting technique for wood-like plant material previously unveiled by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) [3].