Scaler™ is a techno-economic analysis (TEA) and lifecycle assessment (LCA) tool designed specifically for the bioeconomy. It can simulate the economic performance of any fermentation process in industrial scale settings.

No — The Base Scaler TEA is free to use with up to 10 runs per day allowed per user. Synonym experts can help customize the TEA to provide even more detailed results specific to your use case (reach out to us to learn more)

Scaler™ is for everyone! Whether you’re a startup developing a new bioproduct, a Fortune 1000 company buying a bioproduct, or a venture capital firm considering an investment in a synbio company, Scaler can help you understand the economic and environmental impact of your decisions.

TEAs provide a systematic and rigorous evaluation of the economic viability of a technology, and inform decision-making to maximize upside and minimize potential costs and risks.

LCAs enable users to better understand and optimize their bioproduct’s carbon footprint. The rapid adoption of bioproducts will be an essential part of the world’s decarbonized future and companies will be increasingly called to account for their supply chain emissions. LCAs allow users to assess a product’s environmental impact and offer improvement strategies to help steer companies towards making greener business decisions.

Scaler™ currently supports modeling extracellular, aerobic, aseptic precision fermentation processes for both techno-economic analysis and lifecycle assessment.

Our team is currently working to make the TEA support other fermentation processes. If your process falls outside our current technical scope, please reach out to us at [email protected] with more information about what you’d like to see added.

To access the tool, you will need to follow these steps:

1) Click the ‘Start Survey’ button in the top right corner and provide responses to the questions asked. Click the ‘Get TEA Results’ button once completed.

2) Provide your information to sign up and obtain a magic link to access your TEA results.

3) Click on the magic link (sent via email) to access your Scaler TEA report.

4) To immediately access your TEA results, click on ‘Get TEA Results’. We recommend selecting ‘Refine Inputs’ to provide more information about your bioprocess. This will make the TEA report more precise.

5) Once you are done providing inputs, click the ‘Get TEA Results’ button and wait for the results to appear on screen.

6) Review your TEA report. To adjust inputs and re-run the TEA, click the ‘Update Inputs and Re-run’ button.

7) If you have questions, please reach out to our team at [email protected].

To share results with your teammates, click on ‘Drafts and Reports’ at the top of your screen and then click on the report that you’d like to share. Once you’re viewing the desired report, click the green ‘Export PDF’ button in the top right corner. You can share this PDF document with your teammates.

You can submit up to 3 submissions per day.

To invite your teammates to the platform, send them the landing page site and they can sign up for an account.

Scaler generates a mass and energy balance for the fermentation and downstream processing (DSP) process. Scaler uses the mass and energy balance and raw material requirements to develop a utility and chemical summary, which we combine with our utility pricing model to calculate operating costs (OpEx). You can override our utility pricing assumptions in the ‘Advanced’ tab of the input survey in order to customize the techno-economic analysis (TEA) to your particular geography or situation.

Scaler develops a sized equipment list based on your inputs. Synonym maintains an internal database with equipment costs and budgetary quotes, which we update regularly. Then, Scaler estimates a building footprint based on your inputs and calculates building prices based on the size of various process areas, including fermentation, wet DSP, drying, packaging, warehouse, utility and admin areas. These numbers then allow for a calculation of the total capital cost using cost estimating factors.

Our CapEx estimate assumes major utilities must be constructed on-site (electrical, steam, water, firewater, cooling water, chilled water and compressed air) with the exception of wastewater pre-treatment and wastewater treatment, which are assumed to be available nearby. Costs for using third-party wastewater treatment are included in the operating costs.

Synonym recognizes the importance of safeguarding the information you entrust to it and understands the significance of maintaining your secrecy. Synonym highly values your data and is committed to ensuring its confidentiality and security. Please view the data section of our terms of use for more information on how we safeguard your information.

Synonym developed Scaler™.

Synonym is a venture-backed startup that is accelerating the world’s biological future by developing, financing and building commercial-scale biomanufacturing facilities. To learn more about Synonym, visit our website or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter (@SynonymBio).