106. Ferment Your Worldview: Jason Kakoyiannis' Recipe for a Bioeconomy Boom

[00:00:08] Erum: Hey, Carl, how are you? Welcome back.

[00:00:11] Karl: Welcome back, Erum How was your Thanksgiving?

[00:00:13] Erum: Oh, it was great. I went down to North Carolina, hung out with my sister in law and their family. So it was great being in the suburbs. Cooking food, felt just like a Hallmark card. So it was wonderful.

[00:00:25] Karl: and I'm sure the weather was great because you went south.

[00:00:28] Erum: Yes. Yeah. 65 degrees. It reached 71 day felt like I got another fall. and it felt like I had a great fall season cause I went upstate in September it, was in Brooklyn, Manhattan area when it was peak and then went down to North Carolina, in November.

[00:00:44] Erum: And it was peak there. So I had this nice extended, you know, peak fall foliage fall. So it's been a great 2024 in that regard. How about you?

[00:00:56] Karl: that sounds great. Yeah. so we, normally go up to my in laws, in Saratoga County. So it's about three hours north of New York city. And we always tend to drive on Thanksgiving day. So it was rainy in New York city and it rained all the way up. Almost all the way up to Albany, which the joke is always, tropical Albany because it's not except for maybe in July.

[00:01:18] Karl: So it was raining the whole way, not a bad rain. And then once we got, outside of Albany, it started snowing. So when we got to Clifton Park, where my in laws live, there was about five and a half inches of snow on the ground. There are people plowing the streets. So we actually had a white Thanksgiving, which is super nice.

[00:01:37] Karl: And then we also had a very traditional Thanksgiving meal. The whole family was there. It was mellow in a way, but a lot of food, a lot of eating and a lot of celebrating, lots of things to be thankful for. and it's been a while since we've had a white Thanksgiving. We used to have white, Halloweens. there were Halloweens where it was snowing in Park Slope in Brooklyn? but we haven't had one of those in a long time. So definitely there's been some change in the weather.

[00:02:05] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a treat. I'm sure. Although I know it was a pain for a lot of people up, in the North of the United States. So I think there was three feet in some places and, I don't know if it was a surprise, but just sound like it really put, snow on the parade Of getting to getting, to, thanksgiving dinners and just traveling

[00:02:23] Erum: airports are very, very busy. , I did see the rain in New York city cause I was watching the Thanksgiving day parade live and man, more power is people dancing on point. There's cheerleaders dancing in the ice cold rain on point doing flips. I'm like. Wow. This is a phenomenal, to see the resilience, the strength of these cheerleaders, I was just so impressed by performers when they're doing something like the Thanksgiving day parade.

[00:02:49] Karl: Yeah. As we were living in the city. we. drove up Manhattan and took the Lincoln Tunnel and as we were getting on the Lincoln Tunnel, there were a bunch of buses that were from, basically all over the East Coast. so we noted that those are people who are coming to be in the parade. And, I made the comment that, for them, they're going to be resilient because it's New York city, baby.

[00:03:11] Karl: You know, it's like, when else are you going to get a chance to do, cartwheels and backflips on fifth Avenue while the world is watching. I don't think that happens very often. So rain sleet or snow, the performers are going to perform.

[00:03:25] Erum: The show must go on. Yes. And our show must go on. So

[00:03:30] Karl: Exactly.

[00:03:32] Erum: up in biotech? What's going on? how are we growing everything? I actually don't have any news items for the week. I hate to say it because normally I do. I thought we were going to talk about extreme weather and extreme environments causing extreme biology. This is something that we've talked about a fair amount. our theme for the year was really by manufacturing.

[00:03:51] Karl: As we close out the year, we'll have to do a reflection on what we've learned about, by manufacturing, what we've seen, but let's talk about extreme weather, given that the weather has changed. change for Thanksgiving. I mean, we saw two different sides of it and some people got three feet of snow

[00:04:05] Erum: Yeah. And I think a part of this discussion is like, how does biology react, often times. And a big part of the conversation is that extreme weather events it causes a lot of harm to the environment. And what I'm really interested in is, yes, it causes harm to some biology, but could provide opportunities for other biology, whether it's harmful or helpful to humans.

[00:04:27] Erum: That's, another conversation, but it's interesting to seeyou were saying how in New York, we would get snow in October during Halloween. And we just haven't had that in a really long time. And it's getting more and more mild. I mean, that's, whether you believe climate change is real or not.

[00:04:43] Erum: we're laughing at that cause we know what's real. we're scientists through and through, but, what happens to the environment? so, how has the weather been influencing super bugs or the molds? We were talking about, invasive fungi destroying trees is that Because of the change in climate, or is it introduction? Of a new species that, wasn't a natural introduction. Maybe someone was walking through the woods from out of town and they had the fungus somewhere on them and, placed it in a forest and it just took over,

[00:05:13] Erum: It's interesting to see what's correlation and causation when it comes to how the climate affects biology. one of the things besides like, I it is still manmade climate change, but then there's also very direct manmade climate.

[00:05:27] Erum: Environmental change that really falls into how we have been disposing of plastic. 1 of the things we spoke with our guests. for example, we spoke with you G about how they're discovering new types of bacteria strains and they look in waste sites and they see that there are bacteria that Are starting to degrade plastic, maybe not as fast as we like but there is plastic eating bacteria and whether that bacteria evolved to eat plastic or they happened to be eating plastic and it's just doing its thing and eat other things.

[00:05:59] Erum: so it's interesting to, see how extreme weather, the extreme environmental changes are causing extreme biology. And then how do we leverage that biology? To then solve some of these extreme problems that we've had, that might be causing, Weather and environments that are not helpful to humans, because then you got to bring it back to us because, we are humans.

[00:06:19] Erum: We want to be able to live healthy, but we want to make sure all the other living organisms are also happy and healthy. So, I think it's really interesting to take a look at. we're feeling it, especially up here in the northeast where we do get snow, we still get it not as much as we've had, but, it's really interesting to see how biology is reacting to the extreme weather.

[00:06:40] Karl: Yeah, you're talking about plastic eating bacteria. And as we are recording this, florida just introduced a bill to prohibit the releasing of things into the atmosphere that might affect the temperature, weather or intensity of sunlight. In other words, they're really trying to prevent people from, engineering the weather or engineering the environment.

[00:07:02] Karl: It doesn't talk about releasing things into landfills, or into the water, let's say to clean PFAS. But I think it's super interesting because, again, it speaks to this idea of there's people who are trying to stop, the march of progress, which we could argue that, releasing.

[00:07:18] Karl: Sulfur dioxide or whatever it is. I don't think it's over dioxide particulate sulfur into the atmosphere to lower the temperature. these people in Florida are trying to or these legislators in Florida are trying to prevent that from happening, though. I do think that's probably something that will happen.

[00:07:34] Karl: Should the temperature get, as high as people are predicting.

[00:07:37] Erum: just to add to that too, is that this plastic eating bacteria and all the response from biology to the extreme. Environmental changes and weather is an example of Earth trying to heal itself, right? Earth has no allegiance to humans, right? It's going to do what it has to do to continue to function and there's this whole world that we need to explore more of, nature's intelligence.

[00:08:02] Erum: what is biological intelligence? There's a lot it's there that's the fact that we're alive and we have such biodiversity, that's a driving force people some people call that god. I know that's getting kind of deep there, but some people have talked about it.

[00:08:15] Erum: one of the oxman talks about the internet of nature how do different, biological organisms communicate with each other? we use language, but there's so many other forms of communication. and how do they send messages to each other? whether that's a chemical communication or light or just different senses.

[00:08:36] Erum: but I think a part of a solution is to also, observe how Earth is trying to heal itself. , and the plastic eating bacteria is one thing, trees. evolving to, maybe Consume more carbon dioxide. invasive species trying to do something hopefully helpful, there's a method behind the madness.

[00:08:56] Erum: That's what I'm trying to understand is what is that method? what is actually going on? What are the specific tactics that the earth and biology is doing to try to heal itself? That's interesting.

[00:09:08] Karl: Yeah, I think we saw a preview of that during the pandemic. I mean,

[00:09:11] Erum: Mm hmm. Mm

[00:09:12] Karl: traveling, when there wasn't as much activity, and I know we've mentioned this before, all of a sudden, animals that you normally wouldn't see, in a city or in a town started appearing, plants were growing in places that they normally wouldn't grow.

[00:09:26] Karl: I remember going into Prospect Park Probably early in 2020, going up to my favorite place, Lookout Hill. And it was just so incredibly overgrown because there had been no human activity there, there were fish swimming into rivers that hadn't been there. So over and over again, we saw that, nature quickly comes back.

[00:09:44] Erum: Yeah, dolphins in the canals, there's dolphins in there, which usually in Venice, it's murky brown water, but it was clear with dolphins. You're like, what?

[00:09:53] Erum: Could you

[00:09:53] Karl: no, it's crazy. And know I mentioned it before, but scavengers reign on, on Netflix really goes in deep in, um, you know, into like how biology doesn't really care about humanity and how, um, you know, on a, on an untamed world, uh, biology can really be anti human, but it's really just.

[00:10:14] Karl: Trying to help itself survive we have covered, I know I've mentioned scavengers rain in the past, but we've covered a lot of this kind of stream of file biotech. We had Nil of cultivarium on here. they're working on making it easier to work with non model organisms. you mentioned Yuji a bit biome.

[00:10:31] Karl: They're also doing something similar companies that we haven't talked to, but we track. Arcadia is a company that's similar, different kind of mission than Cultivarium, Puna Bio in Argentina,

[00:10:43] Erum: most recently we were reached out by a company called Forge, which, I think is really interesting, because they're working on developing alternatives to CRISPR, and it might be interesting to have them come on the show and, learn more about what they're trying to do because I think it's super interesting for its genetics

[00:10:59] Karl: But I think should be a perfect segue to our guest.

[00:11:02] Karl: jason kakianis Who we've known for a long time I think we start off the podcast by talking about when we first met He was one of the first people I met at SynBioBeta back in 2014 and he Did a lot of work with Ginkgo Bioworks and now just recently launched the ferment fund, which is a 20 million, really biotech synbio studio, which, I think it's going to be really interesting to talk to him about and the kinds of progress that they've made.

[00:11:30] Erum: Yeah, yeah. It's exciting to talk to him. They've come a long way. The ferment fund, there was a previous iteration of it with Ginkgo Bioworks, where they invested in some of the companies that we have interviewed on the podcast, like Alonia, like Archaea as well, and a few other companies that we need to get on the podcast as well.

[00:11:48] Erum: it's going to be exciting to hear, , how, Jason and the team at ferment are creating these opportunities for the next leaders in synthetic biology.

[00:11:56] Karl: Yeah. So with that, let's let Jason take it away.

[00:12:09] Karl: All right, Jason Kakianis. It's a super big treat to have you here. You're one of the first people I met in the synthetic biology community. We, one of the first, I remember one of the first conversations I had with anybody in synthetic biology was with you at SimBioBeta probably in 2014 or 15 at the Autodesk headquarters.

[00:12:31] Karl: So welcome to the Grow Everything podcast. We're

[00:12:34] Jason: Thank you. Yes, I'm thrilled to be here. really value the opportunity to speak to you both. And Carl, you know, it's funny. I have that same recollection, like my, one of my early entree moments into synthetic biology was in that 2014 era, , through the SinBioBeta door and really still in Look back fondly at that moment when we were conversing over.

[00:12:56] Jason: I think it was a miniature scale 3d printed models of architecturally significant New York City buildings in the San Francisco Autodesk office.

[00:13:07] Karl: pretty awesome. So when we first met, you were running your own consulting firm. , you're focused on scents, maybe on flavors as well. I don't remember that too well. Then you started doing some work with Ginkgo Bioworks and helped bring in a bunch of deals there. And now you're launching a new fund.

[00:13:25] Karl: What's the thread that connects all those things?

[00:13:28] Jason: Sure, when I look at these zigs and zags to me in retrospect, they make perfect sense. But on paper, seem so erratic. maybe I can start. the thread that connects them is, my own personal drives really find things. The things that excite me intellectually and professionally are things that sort of spark a sense of wonderment, like a sense of like, wow, you can do that.

[00:13:47] Jason: , so when I look at my career motion, it's always been pursuit of things that are on this edge of, grand, but grand in terms of vision, but that takes hard skills to land in the world And so let me explain a little bit about that. I was an art historian for a while phd in art history all that dissertation and then spent my 20s in new york city banging around the art world making art curating the whitney working in some galleries and in that Moment got very intrigued with fragrance and flavor, sensory experience.

[00:14:17] Jason: What I loved about it was really just on the margins of. Comprehensibility and language, This was just pure emotion. hit a jacked on the art world that went to law school out here in L. A. then went back to New York, practiced law for about five minutes. I was in the mergers and acquisitions department of a large law firm.

[00:14:33] Jason: and as soon as I could, I talked my way into a job at Jivid on largest fragrance and flavor company in the world. Like back to my passion. I had a non legal role there. I was doing marketing sales, eventually corporate strategy. And my colleagues were perfumers and flavorists.

[00:14:48] Jason: these deeply trained, passionate sensory people of which I think there are fewer perfumers than astronauts in the world. and our clients were large CPGs, the L'Oreal's of the world, the Estee Lauder's. Everyone from Tom Ford to Coca Cola to Bath and Body Works, and we're delivering the sensory experiences of these products, the taste and the smells, and I met, Jason Kelly of Ginkgo in Rome in 2014, September of that year at a fragrance and flavor supplier conference.

[00:15:16] Jason: where we were there, it was there by half a given on to negotiate the supply contracts and ingredients. And he was there to talk about how the future of ingredients and aroma chemicals would be through fermentation. I immediately grabbed onto this because I had been very close to a lot of the supply chain challenges that we were having in the industry, either relying on plant extracted molecules.

[00:15:36] Jason: think of things like vanilla from Madagascar but truly from Indonesia or rose oil from Northern Africa. And a lot of these supply chains are, unstable, from a price or, even supply weather perspective. And then aroma chemicals we relied on were coming from petrochemistry and the volatility in oil and gas.

[00:15:54] Jason: And so this was an industry that was hungry for stability, hungry for quality, and here comes this promise of fermenting. using cell engineering to work with the genes from plants, put those into microbes that you could then manufacture on demand, in a more sustainable way. Get the chemical purity that you need.

[00:16:12] Jason: It provided all these benefits. so I was intrigued When I started to talk to folks in this industry, what I realized, or this nascent industry of synthetic biology was that they were profound thinkers from a technology perspective, and they were still very much thinking and figuring out the markets they could serve.

[00:16:28] Jason: And so I took the leap , to help Ginkgo start to build up its business, and jumped in with them to help serve the industries that I knew well, fragrance and flavor ingredients, food and nutrition, and then expanded that. Over time into enzymes, chemical intermediates, et cetera. under the Ginkgo umbrella around 2018, we started building new businesses from within the company that, Could use the platform, but go quickly into end markets to create a bio enabled company first, because incumbents were moving fairly slowly and we felt that there were opportunities.

[00:16:59] Jason: And then when Ginkgo went public in 21, I left and started ferment as a way to continue that company creation activity.

[00:17:06] Erum: Oh,

[00:17:07] Jason: So now to round off what we're announcing now is, the fact that we've raised committed capital, 20 million studio fund and allowing us to create four companies over the next two years.

[00:17:18] Erum: wow. That's incredible. when I first met you was at the ferment conference, which was, which was hosted by Ginkgo. So I assume that ferment was a part of Ginkgo against your work there, but they're separate entities, correct?

[00:17:32] Jason: Yes. Now we're totally independent. I think from it was born under the Ginkgo umbrella. mean, it was vehicle that we created to develop new companies. It also happened to be the name of that conference, we love that word and used it very liberally. and then when I left, we kept the name ferment for the studio, for the vehicle, for company creation.

[00:17:50] Jason: we work closely with Ginkgo and with other technology partners. To provide services, but functionally, we're totally independent on our own. And, agnostic as to the partners and technologies we want to build companies with.

[00:18:03] Erum: Okay. Yeah. thanks for clarifying that. So I understand that the permit manifesto states that biotech's biggest hurdle isn't technology, but finding the right problems. So could you walk us through an example of a right problem versus a wrong problem? A wrong problem for biotechnology.

[00:18:22] Jason: Sure. I think this is really goes to the level of understanding of the end goal, , and the needs you're trying to serve in, specific detail. So for us, a right problem statement is something like, I have an insight into an industry because I've been working in that space.

[00:18:38] Jason: Personal care materials, renewable energy. I've been working in that space for a long time and I really understand or have a perspective on, where the current innovation supply chain is falling short. I see it. I see a problem. I understand the value. That solving this problem could create. I want to understand if biology is a good way for solving this problem, I sufficiently understand, or we sufficiently understand the economics around the problem, switching costs of a customer, their next best alternatives, the value chain, who creates value, but also who captures the value, And once we have conviction, this is now I'm describing how we work, once we have conviction around, the problem we're looking at is one that makes economic sense.

[00:19:23] Jason: We then start asking the technology question of can you build a biology company that would have a competitive advantage? for us, it's like working backward from the market problem that is sufficiently well understood and specific. so, look, some of the examples things that we're working on now are, questions in food and nutrition around adulteration.

[00:19:43] Jason: around food safety, questions. For instance, when we built, Ayana, the plant self fermentation company, these were big issues. in plant based bioactive molecules, we wanted to get to better bioactive molecules that we could use in nutrition products, but supply chain through agriculture were spotty and expensive and adulteration is big.

[00:20:03] Jason: Purity is a big problem in nutrition supplement space. How did this work when we built alone? Yeah, company focused on waste remediation and we saw pretty important signals regulatory issues. the impending. EPA regulation of PFAS perfluorinated compounds and no great way to handle that contaminant.

[00:20:22] Jason: a lot of ways, chemistry and physical processes had plateaued in terms of their ability to deal with that waste. , but biology had a good chance at breaking it down. so we really understood or forced ourselves to understand well, like what were the alternatives people were using? How advantaged could biology be?

[00:20:39] Jason: What would the costs per? acre of treated land or, water need to be and then designed our way into a building a business that could deliver performance at that specific price point. And I could go on and on the wrong problem statements for us are usually and this is classic. This would be something like, What people would call technology push, And it's ubiquitous. And we all talk about how, this is something to be avoided, but I think it's camouflaged. but I'm excited about a technology or a product. And I think hope or believe It can make a difference because it's really cool. and, we've developed it and someone in the world will want it.

[00:21:15] Jason: And it's just a matter of sorting through the haystack to find the needle of the right product market fit. And now that's doable in the cycle time it takes to find that fit. Companies can often live or die.

[00:21:28] Karl: Yeah, totally agree. And I mean, that's one of those lessons that we, say to founders all the time. It's like, no one really gives a shit about your tech. Sorry to be spicy. But, at the end, what people want is the benefit and the solution to a problem. And the technology actually is secondary.

[00:21:44] Karl: If it happens to be a biological solution, then all, so much the better. But if you can't really address the solution first, in how you tell the story. I think you're gonna lose a lot of people along the way you start off by talking about your career in moving from the art world to getting a law degree to working at give a don And then now we're talking about the kinds of companies that You got, the kinds of problems you guys want to solve.

[00:22:08] Karl: And I just wonder, if we can go into that flavor and fragrances space for just a minute before we go on, , because it seems like on the one hand, they have also been very quick to embrace, either partnerships or working with synthetic biology companies, this understanding that, fermentation allows them to, really control their supply chains, but on the other hand, they are huge companies that tend to move very slowly. Talk about how you think those particular businesses might be ready for disruption by the kinds of companies that you guys are looking to build.

[00:22:38] Jason: yeah, sure. I think there's a lot there. I think that. I would almost modify your statement away from disruption and move it more toward, partnership or enablement. think the phase that we're in and truly internalized spending 7 or 8 years on the cell side of biology is that The cliche of big incumbent companies being slow and risk averse and, potentially dumb versus, really smart, small startups who are innovative, building the future and, no much more is totally wrong.

[00:23:11] Jason: I actually think it's sometimes often reversed. At least that was my feeling of being very humbled by the knowledge and sophistication with which large companies Corporate partners work because they're balancing so many different competing forces in the world. And that there is status quo bias and loss aversion.

[00:23:28] Jason: but to answer your question, I think companies that are well positioned to work with biology have a couple of things on their side, Timing, They have, the ability to Patiently wait for applications to play out. They're not maybe point dependent on a biological solution.

[00:23:44] Jason: They're probably blending biology or biomolecule with other things in their portfolio so that they can, take on the timing risk for that ingredient or for that molecule to hit. I think that the fragrance and flavor industry came to bio early ish after the chemicals industry had played with it, ?

[00:24:03] Jason: Because essentially these are businesses, fragrance and flavor industry are fine chemicals business with, some creativity on top to premiumize it. And as I said, they're managing the volatility of supply chains Many of which were agricultural, And biology is like fairly well suited to making a lot of those compounds.

[00:24:19] Jason: and they're needed in, moderate quantity, not massive scale. So tolling them was feasible. But Carl, maybe going back to your question. what other threads could I hit?

[00:24:29] Karl: Yeah, no. And I don't want to in any way imply that, big companies are slow movers, or I completely agree with you. I shouldn't have used disruption because I just feel like that. Is overused. , it was always heartening to see, when a jiva dawn, was doing the partnership with Ginkgo and, whatever the company was, it was doing, early adopter

[00:24:48] Jason: I think it was like firming ish, kicking things off with amorous. Well, the bigger things that happened around that time, it was driven by a gentleman named Bob Weinstein, who was the head of the natural ingredients business there. , and he just had a unique vision. take the risk, , and others followed suit, I think synthetic genomics was doing things, , evolve,

[00:25:07] Karl: Evolva is the one that comes to mind.

[00:25:10] Jason: yeah, a suite of companies were going after that opportunity because it was nicely, it was this nice pocket of fine chemicals, high margin. , low volume, And people were thinking in terms of how at this point, how do I get a molecule expressed by an organism that I can ferment a reasonable scale that I can probably toll, this industry seem to fit those requirements. And I think that's how a lot of early biology companies stumbled onto that. Sure.

[00:25:38] Erum: it's interesting. you're mentioning timing and having the patients in different timescales. now we're looking at, a lot of this industry is built on chemistry or petrochemistry, but before that it was based on biology. So it was using plants, extraction, those traditional methods of extracting flavors and fragrances and other, Bio based ingredients.

[00:25:57] Erum: And then chemistry came along to really optimize that and get very specific on molecules, through synthetic chemistry. And now it's going back into using biotechnology in a way to leverage biology. So it's like the push and pull, which is really interesting. but since, you came into this world of synthetic biology and you mentioned, being really biotechnology.

[00:26:16] Erum: Into it around 2014 and by beta conference, and now you've been living and breathing, biology since then, how has the landscape for bio based solutions changed since then? what are you seeing that are have been points of, tailwinds that actually these companies can ride.

[00:26:33] Erum: So what makes now the right time for ferment?

[00:26:37] Jason: a lot has changed, A decade's gone by. I think some, people will say that phrase, like in five years, it seems like nothing's changed. And in 10 years, it seems like everything's changed. I wouldn't say everything has changed in our industry, but I w I would say that. a couple of key features platforms have emerged.

[00:26:52] Jason: And what I mean by that is that companies that get built now don't need to have large cell engineering teams inside of them. They can truly access those services, from different service providers and stitch together essentially a technology value chain that allows you to keep your business.

[00:27:10] Jason: less capital intensive, and much more product focused, right? Because instead of having to be really good at the microbiology, you can be good at how do you use a bio catalyst or a biomolecule in formulation in combination with other systems and technologies to deliver a product, So those are the kind of companies we built product focused.

[00:27:27] Jason: Companies when you're walking around them, you're talking to people that are not microbiologists or metabolic engineers, but we're product developers. so that has become the case now because you can access technology platforms, in bio. I think, capital might market cycles have come, we've seen tops and bottoms.

[00:27:46] Jason: we've gone through a full cycle there, regardless of interest rate and investor behavior, the technology keeps compounding. . That's sort of the amazing thing here. I think you see better awareness and ubiquity of biology throughout industries. most corporates have an awareness of biomanufacturing or biology as an enabling technology and given some thought or will engage in a conversation about how strategically relevant it could be for them.

[00:28:11] Jason: I'd say consumers added consumer attitudes have shifted, we spent a lot of time a while ago. Worrying through GMO concerns. And then I think we went through COVID the world was shut down by biology that was out of control. And then it was booted back up by, testing and vaccines that are all products of the biology we're talking about.

[00:28:31] Jason: so the amount of consumer education around biotechnology that occurred through that has been tremendous. And I think consumers are much more sophisticated now in terms of what they expect and The risk trade off that they're willing to undergo for product performance in biology.

[00:28:45] Jason: I think U. S. national priorities have shifted. I think bio has become a must win technology, similar to AI, biomanufacturing is a concept. People can connect it to reshoring or onshore manufacturing to job creation, , And synthetic biology term used on Capitol Hill now and at the D.

[00:29:05] Jason: O. D. and then I think maybe to round off there are more people like me in the industry now folks that didn't come in by a technical door don't have a P. H. D. but very much live at the seam of translating, what biology can do into products and into end markets. so, that's the next exciting phase.

[00:29:22] Jason: And that's what ferment tries to be as a place where we're attracting folks who know end markets, who have delivered value in those end markets, who know different sectors have credibility and relationships there, and are asking, how can I build, or can I build a company with a competitive advantage based in biology to unlock value or solve a problem I'm aware of.

[00:29:44] Karl: yeah. I mean, I think you're totally right. It was interesting. at the end of the summer, the Capgemini report came out, about engineering biology. And it said that something like, 70 percent of executives. believe that bio solutions, will accelerate their process specifically towards, sustainability goals.

[00:30:03] Karl: But then something like 90 percent of them said that they were actually had some kind of bio solution prototyping or testing, or had been talking about it. so to me, that is definitely a sea change in 10 years. I don't think, you know, in 2012, definitely not in 2020. 14, we would have seen, executives at big companies admitting that they see, biotech as a solution for sustainability and or admitting that they've got, indoor projects going on.

[00:30:31] Karl: But I think you're right. I mean, COVID served as an accelerant for all that.

[00:30:34] Jason: Right, maybe one last thing to add on is I hope think when people hear the word biotechnology, the immediately think of drugs and pharma and medicine, that's by far where the biggest impact has occurred. But what we're all talking about what we're doing at ferment is not pharma.

[00:30:47] Jason: No one specifically call that out where we're going after markets outside of pharma. hope and believe Now the term when people hear about manufacturing or biotechnology, they do think of things other than pharma.

[00:30:59] Karl: Yeah, I mean, that's the whole raison d'etre for this podcast. over 100 episode in we've maybe had three that are biopharma focused because there's another podcast doing biopharma and there's no one talking about all of the other solutions that are enabled by biotechnology. so you started for men, and you just recently made an announcement, you've got this 20 million fund.

[00:31:22] Karl: You just said that it was, potentially for four companies as you're taking this studio approach, which is different from a traditional fund model. How does that allow you to do things differently than, say, another biotech focus fund that is also looking at non bio pharma or non healthcare solutions.

[00:31:40] Jason: Yeah. I've spent a lot of time with companies in the space and what we want to do with ferment is build companies from the ground up with the right mental models. Baked in, we want to build companies that are designed to be market back that are already focused on the right problem, that are populated by an industry like a sector expert.

[00:32:00] Jason: what we're building, you know, we're taking a focused and concentrated approach. million sounds small but the truth is most studios Are around this size, Because what we really want to do is focus on quality, not throwing spaghetti at the wall. the evolution would be, another studio fund plus a growth fund to, and gets bigger and it enables growth for these companies.

[00:32:19] Jason: But, what our mental model is, building companies that are very commercially focused and can product ties and be in revenue within two and a half years. working with. Leaders from the end markets, we want to go into, those folks tend to have, 15, 25 years of experience under their belt.

[00:32:36] Jason: They've translated products. They have customer credibility. they've exited in these spaces before. We like to embed these companies with strategic partners out of the gate, link strategic investors or strategic partners, bringing again, a market reality around timing, around product fit, around specs early on that's bracing, but healthy for young companies.

[00:32:57] Jason: and then we make sure these companies are capital light, right? By stitching together the outsource providers we talked about, they're product focused and, We understand exactly how they're going to monetize recipe in some ways, if we sat around as investors investing directly into companies built that way, there are very few, So we had to kind of take it upon ourselves to put those design rules into them.

[00:33:20] Erum: So hone in on this. Difference between a venture fund. And I mean, would you say it's a venture studio or would you say, I know Carl said focused studio,

[00:33:30] Jason: we are a venture studio, What we do is build companies from scratch. we work with entrepreneurs in residence who come to work with us for a cycle of time, to explore a set of ideas, hone in on them, flesh out the economics, as I talked about, develop the product slate.

[00:33:49] Jason: Figure out the IP and the technology roadmap and along the way, we are putting these things through stage gates, We have S. O. P. S. What needs to be true at any given point to progress? Most of the ideas we work on are, Getting moved off into the parking lot at different moments, but the things that survive are ones that we fund.

[00:34:09] Jason: and what we'll typically do is, seed a company with around 3 to 5 million dollars.

[00:34:15] Erum: Yeah. So do you basically take a role in this company? I mean, maybe that's depending on who actually is spearheading the project that you bring on and then, getting some type of traction. So I guess it would depend on the company, but would you look to get To some revenue generation, since you are looking to be, asset light capital light before you go and raise even more fun, more money.

[00:34:37] Erum: Are you or, ideally making money from the product being in the market. So, asking for, the entrepreneurs that are listening to see how they would fit in to ferment if they work with you.

[00:34:50] Jason: Yes. Yeah. So, let me talk first of all about our team and then I'll talk about. The way we work with folks. so for men is composed of myself, my partner, Brian Brazzo and Jess Lieber. Brian Brazzo, has a PhD microbial engineering, was, a scientist who then, focused more on manufacturing and scale up was at ADM and Cargill and eventually Novozymes, very much focused on, managing large PNLs where, Every dollar comes from a biomolecule that was fermented.

[00:35:20] Jason: so very much focused on scaling businesses and large scale fermentation. Jess Lieber, MIT trained synthetic biologist, kind of died in the wool. Scientist, spent some time in academia, and then worked at some flagship companies, Jewel and others and we encountered each other at kinko between myself who covers markets and commercialization brian who thinks about scale up and jess who thinks really about how the technology is unfolding and evolving we think we've got the three big pieces of building healthy businesses covered mia helene is a vp on the team she's got a classic investor background.

[00:35:59] Jason: VC and private equity, particular emphasis, companies in fertility and women's health and, Matt Kirschner, an associate who comes from a classic biopharma consulting background, spent some time at Ginkgo and has been working on company builds with me for the last Four or five years.

[00:36:15] Jason: we internally generate ideas and themes and areas that we're excited about, but there's just five of us, right? We will never have the best ideas. What we really need to be is a center of gravity for the conversation with this community where folks think of us. As the first stop, as they're ideating about what things they want to build, So the EIRs we love to work with and entrepreneur residents, we like to work with our, as I said, folks from disparate industries, not from synthetic biology, but from, materials, chemicals, animal health, who have maybe accomplished something in their space and are saying, what's, my next step?

[00:36:50] Jason: I see an opportunity. I wonder if biology is a way to capture value solving that problem. Love to talk to those folks. Other folks are maybe younger in their journey. Early career, mid career have ideas and intuitions about how technology can be applied or have been looking at markets. Everything with us starts as a conversation.

[00:37:07] Jason: People show up with, a version of a concept or a question. We put our knowledge on the table with their knowledge, spin it around. After several conversations, maybe something good comes out.

[00:37:16] Karl: That's super cool. in the announcement you guys mentioned alchemica as one of your first companies to spit it out And they're focused on natural gas production how did you guys see that as being the right problem to tackle, you know for one of your first companies?

[00:37:32] Jason: think it's a great illustration For how our model works in practice, So Alchemica really met the signature, the signals for how we like to find a market back problem. as I mentioned, Brian Brazzo, my partner had spent a lot of time in the bio energy space from his time at Nova Zymes now called Nova Nisus.

[00:37:51] Jason: he led the North America business there. Bioethanol was a big sector for the enzymes that they were selling. and then Patrick Wagner, who's the CEO of this new company of Alchemical was also at BP and also knew the space, they both noted two things simultaneously. One was big conversation around SAF, sustainable aviation fuel through bio based feedstocks. but if you sat down and did any of the math and you'd realize like these feedstocks would need to virtually be free, No cost. second specific market trend was a lot of intense interest in biogas and methane and anaerobic digesters. and this phenomena of oil and gas majors, especially in the EU, some in the U.

[00:38:30] Jason: S. here, like Shell, BP were rolling up these anaerobic digestion units. Let me give you a second on what an anaerobic digester is, anaerobic digestion is a process by which. Consortium of bacteria of microbes break down organic waste, right? They're often on farms or food processing facilities or connected to municipal wastewater anywhere.

[00:38:52] Jason: There's a lot of sludge and carbon rich waste streams get fed into these digesters microbes break them down and usually emit a form of biogas or biomethane, which can then be used as energy in that processing facility or injected back into the grid, these anaerobic digesters ubiquitous.

[00:39:11] Jason: There's hundreds of thousands of them. oil and gas majors are buying them up, We need more renewable energy, especially gas, especially in Europe, well as for the credits. The green credits that you can get from producing it, but they're thinking like engineering firms.

[00:39:25] Jason: This is what they are. They're buying these up. They're saying, how do we optimize this process? And they realize there are very few tools for optimization, They're fairly primitive at 80s are fairly primitive. And so. Alchemical was really born with the vision of 1st, how can we uplift the performance of these 10s of thousands of anaerobic digesters?

[00:39:43] Jason: alchemical vision is to pre treat these waste streams with different blends of enzymes to make the waste, depending on what it is more available to the microbes and then to introduce sensor technology into the 80s. So there's a. Better process understanding and control and by building out a data layer, a digital twin of this complex process can start to really understand and be predictive.

[00:40:08] Jason: Around how enzymatic pretreatment different way streams ambient conditions, lead to different throughput, so it's giving a control layer driven by biology, around this process to the operators and our gambit is that we think we can uplift the performance these units by about 50 percent we can also introduce other kinds of microbes that can allow you to create other molecules besides these.

[00:40:33] Jason: Methane, So lipids, other things that can be then refined into valuable chemicals, you get a side stream that's got value as well. so that's pretty exciting. what I love about this, Carl is we're not talking about a business that's, engineering a microbe to squirt out a molecule that you're going to sell in tote bags as an ingredient.

[00:40:51] Jason: What it is, is a business that's wrapping biology around other technologies, hardware and software to uplift or premium eyes. The way an existing operation works and that's exciting that gets that creates immediate value for operators. We know exactly how we're going to get into market. We know exactly who we're working with and how we create value for them.

[00:41:10] Jason: there's sort of a moonshot buried inside of this very practical sounding business. And that moonshot is. If you can get waste as a viable feedstock for fermenting valuable molecules that can be converted to chemicals, we're now talking about revolutionizing the way biomanufacturing works, Waste, a free feedstock into valuable chemicals. That's pretty cool, And that's a much longer, like bigger vision bat. but I think what This illustrates is the companies we create a very market focused, very product focused, very clear understanding of the problem they're solving populated by a commercial leader who's relentless about getting there quickly, but uses that I think by getting the fundamentals right up front, allows you to also have a longer term vision, knowing that you'll be able to keep the lights on while you get there.

[00:42:02] Karl: Yeah,

[00:42:02] Erum: Yeah.

[00:42:03] Erum: you're describing alchemica, it really just reminded me of human digestion, You're saying you pre treat with enzymes, which is amylase in your mouth and it goes into an anaerobic

[00:42:14] Erum: system, all the microbes working together and, spits out some methane gas and valuable products.

[00:42:22] Erum: So I was like, Oh, okay.

[00:42:25] Jason: That's such an app metaphor. You're absolutely right.

[00:42:29] Erum: Yeah, that's really great. I would love to sit with you guys. I mean, Carl and I all the time think of unique companies. I mean, throughout this podcast, we'll just come up with something, not sitting down and cracking the numbers, but, thinking of some of the, founders and entrepreneurs that have been as podcasts as services they provide and like, oh, they provide that surface, I mean, you could maybe create something like that.

[00:42:49] Erum: So, Where do you see some of the biggest opportunities for biobased solutions? are you guys excited about that maybe you haven't seen? And you have to respond, from the ferment. world as a ferment representative, but more as like yourself or just because you've been in this space, what sectors are ripe for these biobased solutions?

[00:43:06] Erum: Yeah, I know you said, fragrance and flavors, but we'd love to just hear like an example of a company and maybe even walking us through What does an asset light capital light experience or business growth look like for that company. And I have one example, if you want, let me throw one at you,

[00:43:23] Jason: I want to hear it. Yeah. Let's hear your idea.

[00:43:26] Erum: I was talking about this in the previous episode, about the skin microbiome and being able to, I mean, I know that's, been attempted to create a lotion to really enhance the microbes on your skin because, you we clean ourselves so much. I think some people don't, and they probably have healthy skin microbiomes, but like, basically a skin microbiome topical solution to really have healthy, beneficial skin.

[00:43:47] Jason: Yes. So emphatically, yes. And in fact, I'll point you to a company that we were involved with, creating called Archaea

[00:43:56] Erum: Yeah, we had Jeff Mina on the pod. Yeah,

[00:43:58] Jason: That's right. And so, not only was she an entrepreneur that launched the first personal care skincare product powered by microbes, but, when we envisioned Archaea, it was exactly to tackle this, question, right?

[00:44:08] Jason: Of why are we at war with the bacteria on our skin? We use our surfactant based products. We strip off the protective layers of oils and microbes on our skin. And then we pay through the nose for active ingredients, and moisturizers to replenish that barrier rather than working with the beneficial bacteria.

[00:44:26] Jason: the first product launched from Archaea was actually, a prebiotic for deodorants, Which was to enhance the beneficial bacteria in your underarms and allowing them to outcompete. the sulfur producing bacteria responsible for odor. so I'm pointing to this only to say you're a hundred percent, this idea works, it's technically about, how do you take live microbes, if that's what you want to do and situate them in a personal care product formula, chemistries too, And do you have to keep that product cold in the way that we keep anything with a live culture cold to keep it alive?

[00:45:02] Jason: then, then the next question is, okay, if I do have to keep it cold or otherwise, what's the price point? How do I distribute it to customers? now expect personal care, shelves to have a cooler? so like, I'm only nudging, cause this is how we think, what would the commercialization strategy be? And how would you position it? Because undoubtedly the technology has something to say. But. Let's walk that concept a few cycles forward into the world and start asking the hard questions of when you productize it, what's it need to look like, but a hundred percent on board with that.

[00:45:30] Jason: And really still do think there's room for innovation and personal care to think biology first, everything from hair care, And think of the harsh chemistries around arm and straightening these things haven't really been innovated for 50 years and are extremely harsh. , Other markets, we really like still bullish on nutrition, I think people are very focused on wellness or like sub therapeutic science based nutrition. We've done companies there, both IANA and for probiotics are focused there and there's, Plenty of room to run there, there's opportunities in like classic nutrition, but then detoxification, Microplastics in the body and other contamination in the body. even when you think about food system and nutrition, improving traceability and transparency of ingredient quality. using microbes as ways to verify and ensure the integrity of product.

[00:46:22] Erum: Yeah. And I guess another part of this question is they didn't have to raise money for big labs, for all this deep R and D work. So where is their spend going then? if it's not to spend on capital costs for lab space or it's interesting to me to, this model.

[00:46:39] Erum: it's a model that Nicole and I talk about a lot because we do see that there's all these services. You can outsource every aspect of research and development and product, even marketing. Hello, messaging lab, all of that. You can just do the whole gamut. and you can even test whether the product actually going to be out there, you can start testing on Instagram tomorrow, or, in trade magazines, whether or not you create the product or not, the testing is readily available.

[00:47:02] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. So curious to hear your thoughts on how

[00:47:06] Erum: would you approach that? still do spend on some development, But it's just flexible spending. You've taken a fixed operating cost of heads and labs, right? Which are fixed on your balance sheet and turn it into a variable cost because you're now outsourcing it with a partner and you can. Go faster or slower on those programs.

[00:47:26] Jason: You can have more programs or lesser, but like you can be much more adaptable in the way you run your business rather than having, large technical teams that you got to figure out how to redeploy if you shut down a program. I think that's just like one practical benefit of this model.

[00:47:41] Jason: I think the companies we built spend a lot of time on product development. It's like once you have the microbe or the enzyme or the biocatalyst, again, how are you formulating it and blending it with other technologies into a product? And how is it performing? And I think that's really where they're spending a lot of their time and resource.

[00:47:57] Jason: And then in commercialization,

[00:47:59] Karl: part of the beauty of this model is I'm going to say three years ago, or four years ago. Considering that you would move from, capital expenditures or your capital expenditure could be turned into an operating expense instead.

[00:48:12] Karl: I think in biotech was probably like unheard of, especially if we talk about industrial biotech writ large in these applications that we're talking about. Because like now, instead, you don't have to go out and build a lab. Your investment is going to be in that microbe. But. Okay. You can really start off by figuring out what that product is going to be beforehand, and that's all, operating costs.

[00:48:32] Karl: You're not making a big investment in, a building necessarily.

[00:48:36] Jason: think so. . And I think the other part of what's interesting is like, we're, timing the cycle now, where there's been a lot of paid in investment in developing, technology, biotechnology that hasn't made it to market yet, but that's maybe one cycle away. so you can, find that technology in license it and become the commercializer.

[00:48:54] Jason: You can find that from, from labs, from other startups that are maybe rationalizing what they're doing and focusing on a few things and willing to sell or out licensing what they've done previously. Large corporates also have what we like to of as marooned assets. That they're not quite sure what to do with and we've done, we started businesses with large corporates that have assets that they'll roll into a new company that will help build up biome edit in animal health.

[00:49:17] Jason: It's a company that we built with Aaron shacked. Alenko. so that's a great example

[00:49:22] Jason: of ways to like hack your way quickly into market.

[00:49:25] Erum: in that regard, I mean, there's been a lot of companies that you've seen, whether through ferment, the affiliations with Ginkgo and a lot of those companies seem like they didn't have a lot of capital expenditure, they leveraged some of the, ecosystem and some of those companies are doing well, some maybe not so well.

[00:49:41] Erum: So can you tell us what patterns you noticed between the ones that are successful between the ones that are struggling?

[00:49:48] Jason: You know, it's hard to say. I think it's so various. I think that, you can look at broad sectors and there's just been a drawdown in that broad sector, like food tech, for instance, there are just headwinds there that have a lot to do with cost and inflation and consumer behavior.

[00:50:02] Jason: and it's not really about the technology or even the value prop Of a lot of the Startups that were built in the space. but I do think that, the companies that were not set up to develop product quickly and find traction in the market and be able to, survive through revenue are the ones that are getting winnowed down.

[00:50:18] Jason: And so I think that's a very obvious thing to say. It's like, make money, keep the lights on, respect the laws of, physics when it comes to business. But, you have companies only have one way to win and that that's a development cycle. That's years out. very tricky companies that I think think of themselves more solution providers or multiple product companies, With more shots on goal, different ways to win. and a little more commercially canny, can get there.

[00:50:41] Erum: Yeah, you don't want to give examples, you don't have to, but just more along the lines of, , maybe there's a company that decided to go B2B, but if they went B2C, like direct to consumer, maybe they would have one, but they made a decision to have a certain model versus another.

[00:50:57] Erum: And. In retrospect, it was like, okay, if they actually went, direct to consumer, maybe another competitor company did that had similar technology, they could have one, but they just made a different decision. so I don't know if there's like a case study that you could point to or just want to talk about, or if you don't want to talk about it, that's okay too.

[00:51:13] Jason: mean, I'll give you a great answer. Apple of a company were very involved in called alonia waste remediation company. And Nicole Richards, who's the CEO, there's a very seasoned, rational, commercially driven leader and opportunity presented itself early on in the company's life where thinking about the products.

[00:51:30] Jason: And opportunities for Alonia. It was very clear that it needed to be a, solution company, Like offer a treatment train. Alonia is a company that deals with industrial contaminants, PFAS, one for dioxane, other things develops microbial solutions for that. But in order to use your microbial solution, you have to help a customer sense and know that they have a problem to begin with.

[00:51:52] Jason: because there's a significant spend on just knowing I have a separate. The contaminant from the soil or water, so a separation technology is usually not biological. And then use your, biological catalyst to break down that contaminant. now, if you define Alchemicals as a biology company could just focus on the catalysts, But it's not, it has to be a solution provider. Because if you look at that industry, that's what people want. They want someone to show up and just take care of the problem. So it would need to have a separation technology as well. so, Nicole. And Kent Sorenson, her CTO, led the charge to get their hands quickly on a separation technology, even before the bio catalysts were ready to go.

[00:52:32] Jason: And this was, an interesting, technology for, foam fractionation for separating PFAS from water and soil. they were able to build the business. Become commercially relevant to customers and get out into the market by just doing separation and then layering in the bio catalyst to improve the separation and then eventually do destruction.

[00:52:52] Jason: giving this example, because it's another way of thinking about building a bio based business, which is you're adding in the biology component as a premium ization. It's again, integrated with other technologies. Those other technologies help you blend down the risk around the bio.

[00:53:07] Jason: but the fact that they're ready earlier lets you get into market quickly. I believe that, Elonia exploded into market, had a great commercial offering, was able to then expand that offering and premiumize it with the biology. But that really became helpful in the 2022 era, Where things really shifted in capital markets and the expectations around startups was, you need to be making revenue very quickly, What seems like maybe a quizzical thing to do in license a conventional technology to get into market early, maybe that would have been questioned in 2018 1920 when folks thought technical milestones were much more important became, I think a really strong. Winning point for Alonia and they've done great, been able to continue to, succeed.

[00:53:54] Karl: Yeah, I think that's great. I know we've gone over. I mean, you said we could have a little bit more time, but I've got one more question. I think Iran probably has a bunch more. I mean, of course, we have a lot more, but, as we get ready to close out this, episode with you, Jason, and we want to have you back as, we see for med succeed, but what should our listeners, whether they're founders, scientists, or industry veterans do to engage with your mission of growing everything, which is our mission as well.

[00:54:20] Jason: Okay. come to us with your problems, We want to hear from industry. We want to hear from entrepreneurs in different industries who identify an area where their current innovation supply chain is falling short, but where they're curious about whether biology can meet that need. so let's explore that together.

[00:54:39] Erum: Amazing. and there's the part of it of bringing the EIR the entrepreneur in residence, bringing them in, but also For those that are in industry, being a strategic partner of ferment as well.

[00:54:53] Jason: Absolutely. Yeah, corporates are a huge part of how we think, how we learn about problems to solve, and as I said, often have technology or, commercialization or insights. we're blessed with a great LP in the GS group, There are backers. GS group is a large Korean conglomerate.

[00:55:11] Jason: They've got, assets in everything from refining, petrochemistry, biomanufacturing to retail, right? They have the largest convenience store chain in Korea and the largest home shopping network in Korea. And the chairman at GS, comes from a retail background. So he understands how bio based products can create differentiation, product differentiation and storytelling differentiation to consumers, but also sees, biomanufacturing as a very interesting technology curve to grab onto. so the bookends there, The connectivity between manufacturing product is very compelling. They make those great partners. They bring us wonderful ideas. And so in talking to corporates of any stripe, we value that.

[00:55:54] Erum: Yeah. And Korea is also well known for their skincare routines and skincare products. So, um, Hey, if you're listening to us, I mean, we have an idea. We've been, we're fermenting it right now. See ya.

[00:56:10] Karl: so much for taking the time today. I mean, like I said, we're really looking forward to seeing ferment be super successful and having you come back on again to give us a report in a couple months.

[00:56:21] Jason: pleasure. Thank you both for the time.

[00:56:24] Karl: Awesome.

[00:56:26] Jason: Have a great day. Bye.

[00:56:30] Karl: Erum what did you think of that interview?

[00:56:32] Erum: Jason. is really helping boost the bioeconomy think taking a very concerted approach Having this call to action, having this call for ideas, the call for problems is very interesting, especially as they're looking to attract people from the industry, people from industry that have a very intimate, that have very intimate knowledge of the problems as they exist , in today's business models in today's industry, We love all entrepreneurs, whether they are coming right out of college, trying to figure it out, , or from a different industry, coming into a new industry, but , those founders that , know the problem so well, because they lived it every day and they know who they need to talk to in order to solve it.

[00:57:18] Erum: And they know which people to bring in the room is, A great recipe for actually having change happen and actually having a company scale up. So it's a very, very smart way of starting companies and having the studio model. it's a venture studios are very interesting in the fact that you do have these investors, but they're actually working with you.

[00:57:38] Erum: They are bringing more resources than a typical investor would bring in terms of, really. Being a part of the company as if they were on your team, it'd be interesting to see if they actually take roles. something that remains to be seen.

[00:57:52] Erum: Like, would Jason be a Officer of the new company. , but that's an aside. but it's cool because another reason that I love this interview and liked talking to Jason is because he doesn't come from a biotech background. This is another example of someone who worked in different industry, who saw the promise of biology and.

[00:58:13] Erum: Was convinced that this is what needs to happen and committed to then bringing biology to industry so That understanding that revelation that passion that jason has brought to biology is infectious and we need more people like him to Activate like he has been activated. So we need more people activated like him But what did you think?

[00:58:36] Karl: well, I'm gonna push back a little bit. , because, and I love Jason, I love the model. I think the model is a very conservative model. I think that there's a lot to be said for that model, where you're bringing in industry experts. You drive a change within an industry.

[00:58:52] Karl: However, I am also a big believer at having outsiders come in and solve problems and maybe partnering them with someone from within an industry because I think people who are in an industry often have a myopic bias. Point of view, and they might see a problem, but the only way they know how to solve it is the way the industry might solve that problem.

[00:59:11] Karl: biology is a great platform. I think like Jason makes the point that, the platform, we really over 10 years have evolved into a place where we have this platform that we can use. And the platform and the technologies are going to continue to evolve. And I think that the model that they have is a smart one, but I think that there is a lot of room for other models besides the.

[00:59:30] Karl: This studio model where you're taking industry experts and pairing them with technologists to solve and build big companies. They've had a really great track record. I mean, with Ginkgo, uh, who we've had on the podcast, Elonia, who we've had on the podcast, they. are tremendous companies.

[00:59:47] Karl: I'm really looking forward to seeing the companies that come out of this model with Jason. But I think it's also, there's a lot to be said for having outsiders come in to solve big problems in existing industries. And you can push back on me, Erum or any of our listeners.

[00:59:59] Erum: I mean, can say whatever you want, this is our podcast, but I mean, I was just highlighting that this is another one, right? I'm not saying that's the best one and it remains to be seen. And I don't think that's the approach that they took for their previous fund with Ginkgo.

[01:00:12] Erum: Yeah, Nicole comes from wastewater and Jasmina had sold Archaea. So they both are seasoned, executives or entrepreneurs, from their respective industries. yeah, it does help. and again, I think you're right to just having someone from outside come in with a different perspective is right. And, , it will be interesting to see how they facilitate that, and maybe, they're looking at it as a model, but they're open to investing in people from the outside. have to talk to Jason and see, but right now, they're looking for requests for problems. They're looking for ideas. They want you guys to, share. and. they're going to take a look at, not only the team, but what problem you're addressing, how you're approaching it.

[01:00:51] Erum: Maybe you are looking, maybe you do have an industry leader, co founder, and, but you are from the outside, and point to that success. Cause in the end, they're not just looking for industry people. They're looking to turn around their investment, 10 X. and solve big problems the other example is biome edit aaron shack does come from the animal health industry and we just replayed their episode last week It was good to listen to it and hear aaron's point of view on this there's a lot of opportunity But, in contrast to that model is C 16, Shara comes from the outside.

[01:01:22] Karl: She and her co founder, they saw a problem, they went out and they raised money. So I think, there's room for lots of different models. I love the model that Jason and ferment have put together and I want to see them succeed.

[01:01:33] Karl: So, go and read their call for problems or requests for problems.

[01:01:38] Karl: It's really a good thesis and it's a good way to get an introduction to ferment and what they're trying to accomplish

[01:01:45] Erum: yeah, will definitely link that to the show notes, to the ferment fund and, their call for problems. I would say too, is no matter whether you're from industry or not, being able to have a first principles approach to solving a problem is Very important. I just was mentioned, it is maybe harder for, someone in industry because they've been working in one type of system.

[01:02:06] Erum: Then to come up with something completely new, they need to do like a D learning of the way things were and a real learning of a new, method. and it's something that's interesting because, , in the conversation, the way that Jason was describing alchemica, it just reminded me of just human biology, right? He's like spraying, the enzyme on feedstock. It's like, okay, yeah, we spray an enzyme on feedstock all the time when we're eating and then we're digesting and fermenting it in our bellies. And then we create a product at the end of that experience.

[01:02:35] Erum: but to be able to think that's just a very natural, process. Humans eating and, creating waste or product, it's a very valuable fertilizer that we create. being able to think of, what happens in nature, what could be a natural bioreactor? what does that look like?

[01:02:50] Erum: Is it some type of pond Just introducing different types of microbes, different types of, microbial consortia, different bugs that can work together in symphony to create product and then maybe have pipes or other things that come out of this pond that serve as a downstream process into maybe a factory that could make that final product, but you're just leveraging sunlight, you're leveraging, earth and ground.

[01:03:14] Erum: And I had a call with our friend ginger earlier and we're talking about like, let's take a look at just the way the earth works. as humans, we make tools and we risk and we have over engineered a lot of things. So how do we, Under engineer, that's really the idea is like, how do you use a small amount of resources or really think about location and, resource and how can all come together in a way where.

[01:03:41] Erum: Things work with low energy with low feedstock, but creating a product that is super useful. So, been an interesting conversation that I've been having with you and with injure with a bunch of people.

[01:03:53] Karl: in our notes, you have human as bioreactor. And what I remember is, you're talking about solving problems. I would encourage our listeners to go back and listen to that conversation we had with Moji Kareemi of Cemvita which just completely blew me away.

[01:04:08] Karl: And this idea of using abandoned oil wells as bioreactors, , using what is left in those abandoned oil wells as feedstock for Engineered bacteria to produce products. We have all these things surrounding us there. there's so much opportunity for biology and Jason, rightfully said, these platforms have been built over the last 10 years.

[01:04:28] Karl: We have an opportunity to leverage them. How do you bring people from industries that normally might not use those technologies to leverage them and make a meaningful change and build successful companies? So I'm super excited. I think it was great interview

[01:04:43] Karl:

[01:04:43] Erum: yeah, I think it's a good point again that you highlighted and Jason talked about is that there are all of these platforms that exist. There's playbooks that exist. And we've talked to a lot of people that use these playbooks. Seriously, if you're looking to create a biotech company that is in what we call the bio industrial space or creating ingredients or molecules, go in a cave, listen to our podcast.

[01:05:07] Erum: From episode one till now You will come out with an idea and a plan that will Solve big problems, but also make you wealthy. and call us

[01:05:16] Karl: Thank you

[01:05:17] Karl: very much.

[01:05:19] Erum: And call us, but yeah, it's incredible. I mean, that's we do all the time. there's a podcast that happens between carl and I every day that we talk where we just talk Come up with very interesting ideas, but we also work through them as what is a problem what would stop this idea from moving forward.

[01:05:35] Erum: So we need to create that data bank of ideas. I know other companies and people have ideas. and like on spreadsheets on the website,

[01:05:41] Karl: we need to do that.

[01:05:42] Erum: Yeah, I mean, there's, things in the works. but we'll just tease it. we'll just leave that there.

[01:05:47] Erum: but we're very excited. , for. Opportunities like Ferment's providing to the bioeconomy. So, if you're taking advantage of it or even have more questions, reach out to ferment and you can reach out to us as well. the way to contact us is of course, in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening.

[01:06:04] Karl: All right, that's the pot.