81. Microalgae Marvels: Checkerspot’s Charles Dimmler’s Super Oil for Skis, Skin and Supper

[00:00:00] Erum: Charles Dimmler. We are so happy to have you back on the grow everything podcast. Thank you for joining us today.

[00:00:08] Charles: Oh, it's my pleasure to be here. Good to see you both.

[00:00:11] Karl: Yeah, we're thrilled to have you. There's been a lot going on at Checkerspot.

[00:00:16] Karl: Charles, you were on a year ago, but a lot of people don't know anything about checkerspot So could you give an introduction to those few people who might not know what you guys are doing?

[00:00:26] Charles: yeah, Checkerspot we were founded in 2016. we are focused fundamentally on utilizing biotechnology, synthetic biology or biomanufacturing, all of those terms we're orienting the technology towards producing oil.

[00:00:43] Charles: And lipids fats that, offer an opportunity, as an alternative to both fossil fuels as well as to commodity vegetable oils. we've taken the strategy of, focusing, our commercial efforts on, Entering into the market and in materials applications, and more specifically in outdoor recreation as a place to start.

[00:01:06] Charles: but since we began commercializing, materials, we've grown into some adjacent markets that, now include food, nutrition and, and personal care. here we are in 2024 checkerspot today has. three oil profiles, three different types of oils that we're focused on, and we have a small portfolio of both materials and ingredients that we're commercializing, in a couple of different verticals with.

[00:01:33] Charles: a growing portfolio of customers and partners.

[00:01:35] Erum: amazing, amazing. And in terms of the biotechnology that you're leveraging and the inspiration you're deriving from nature, is that mostly from algae? Can you talk a little bit more about what's going on behind the scenes? Obviously no IP needs to be spilled here, but, can you share a little bit about that?

[00:01:53] Charles: Yeah, we've always been, acutely focused on, working in microalgae. and it isn't because, we have, anything against any other host platform or organism. it has everything to do with the fact that we know this platform organism very well. And the most important thing that we know to be true is its ability to scale.

[00:02:15] Charles: Yeah. have a team at Checkerspot that among a small group of folks in the world that have the experience of taking something from bench to full commercial production at industrial scale. and having done that more than one time and with microalgae, we know that we can produce tailored oils, tailored triglycerides, at scale and add an attractive cost structure in a manner that unlocks performance benefits and products makes products better and where we can help our customers and our partners achieve their decarbonization targets.

[00:02:51] Charles: And so we've really, really thought about. On a strategic basis, focusing on delivering products at the right price with discernible performance advantages that translates to value and, decarbonizing. and that's really created the commercial momentum that we're seeing. And all of that's enabled by microalgae and the fact that we know that it scales.

[00:03:12] Karl: Amazing so you you said you've got three oil Platforms if I can call them that is that right?

[00:03:19] Charles: I would call them profiles. There are three different types of oils that have different chemistries. one of which. we are working with, a large partner that's AK and we haven't disclosed the oil profile

[00:03:33] Karl: Okay. You've got customers that are buying them, but then you guys also have your own sister companies, if I can call them that, that are developing things like outdoor gear. And now you're in the personal care and beauty space, but you've got a larger set of customers that are just buying the pure oil for their own applications.

[00:03:50] Karl: Is that correct?

[00:03:52] Charles: it's mostly correct. I would say it a little bit differently, Carl, because one thing to clarify is that we don't have sister companies. We have, two brands that we've brought to market, but these brands aren't. Entities, they're not incorporated. They're not, set up as companies, their brands under the portfolio of checkerspot.

[00:04:12] Charles: And I feel it's important to, contextualize it to describe it in the context of a framework. and that framework is the innovation platform, which we call it the wing platform. the wing platform is defined by four different Capability sets. The cornerstone of that is what we refer to as the molecular foundry.

[00:04:33] Charles: And this is the biotechnology synthetic biology. The 2nd of 4 is a polymer science and material science capability that allows us to take either the oils themselves or the constituent fatty acids and assemble them utilizing chemistry to get to materials that have again, discernible, valuable performance features.

[00:04:54] Charles: And we've started with urethanes and with textile finishes in the context of materials and polymer science. The third is, in our facility in Salt Lake City, Utah, we have what we call the checkerspot design lab that allows us. Design, build, prototype, test both parts and products based upon the materials were innovating.

[00:05:16] Charles: You can think of it as, machine shop, think, CNC tooling and, things like 3D printing that allow us, to bring to life and to test parts and products based on the materials. And then fourth and finally, which is most germane to your question, Carl, is consumer engagement. and what we experienced in a past life is how valuable, how benefit, how beneficial it can be to bring to life what's possible with materials and ingredients by engaging with consumers by bringing to life the performance advantages of the materials and ingredients, which in effect, de risks.

[00:05:54] Charles: The adoption of those materials and ingredients with customers and partners up and down the value chain from factories all the way down to consumer brands by having wing platform structured as it is, and by having consumer engagement, what we now have the data to show is the demand curve gets pulled in.

[00:06:12] Charles: It's de risk when you sit down with a customer and can talk about an actual cost of goods and an actual value chain and customers that are utilizing the products and are raving about it. it's an amplifier in helping to move forward with B to B commercialization efforts. And so when we think about checker spots, business model were acutely focused on B to B, and we see what we're doing with consumer as a way to achieve that strategically.

[00:06:41] Erum: Yeah, that's amazing. love that approach. you were talking about your initial efforts, producing urethane and in the material space, the first products you launch were skis, correct? It was a coding for skis. Is that the first thing? Or what were the first products that entered the market?

[00:06:57] Charles: The very first product that entered into the market was textile finish that we commercialized with beyond surface technologies, which is a Swiss based specialty chemical company. founded by a bunch of alum from Sibagaygi and Basel, Switzerland and BST, we began collaborating with them and supplying them with.

[00:07:19] Charles: an algal oil that was then developed and formulated into a textile finish. It's called Midori Biowick that is hydrophilic. It pulls moisture away from the skin. And that was technically the first product came to market Midori Biowick and the partnership with BST. Just behind that, as you just pointed out, it was skis in this case, we're utilizing, actually the same oil, but applied through chemistry to get to, not one, but two different types of, of urethanes, a rigid foam and, cast polyurethane, both of which we engineer targeting strength, the weight and damping or energy absorbing properties that we went through a lot of prototyping and bench testing to get to something that led to improve performance.

[00:08:08] Charles: And then we ultimately came to market through our brand wonder Alpine. Today, we have portfolio of customers that are accessing the materials that have been brought to life with Wonder Alpine.

[00:08:20] Karl: I think that's amazing. I mean, do you think that it would be typical for an end user at either a, Chemical designer focused on textiles to understand that the same oil that they're using for their textile coating would be the same one that could be turned into a polyurethane that could be used for skis.

[00:08:41] Charles: think that there are without question individuals on the value chain that have the understanding. That many of the molecular building blocks, monomers that come from commodity vegetable oils or come from petroleum and fossil fuels, feed multiple different application sets and application sets that I might describe as surprisingly different.

[00:09:05] Charles: I don't think that's, necessarily a mystery, but with your question, when it comes to product developers at brands, think what we've seen in the last 15, 20 years, at least is this indexing towards globalization and a lot of the applications development capabilities and the factories moving overseas to different regions of the world.

[00:09:30] Charles: the brands Especially as they've grown and had more and more market traction, have gotten more and more focused on bringing the product to market and engaging with consumers. So you can think, big marketing budgets, but when it comes to product development, we've become more reliant on the factories to do applications development, as opposed to.

[00:09:52] Charles: The brands themselves. I think a consequence of that, what we found is, there have been situations with, product developers, designers and brands. And they'll say, you we're utilizing this phone in this application set. and we say, well, where does it come from? And, what are the specifications?

[00:10:08] Charles: And it's not uncommon to hear. Well, don't know exactly what the specifications are. We can get that from the factory. we also are seeing, with digital technologies and computing that a lot of the product design is being done in silico and then, in CAD drawings to again the factories, there's always.

[00:10:26] Charles: a translation from the digital to the physical. think as a consequence of the globalization and the consequence of some of these dynamics that I'm trying to touch on we're hearing from some of the consumer brands that we're engaging with now is how valuable it is to disintermediate the factory and to get reacquainted with.

[00:10:46] Charles: Applications development and, testing products and to just designing them in a different way that lends itself to ultimately a lower investment, faster product development and a better carbon footprint and efficiency. we're finding that the way again that we structured the wing platform has its own.

[00:11:05] Charles: value propositions that the market is responding to.

[00:11:09] Erum: one of the questions I had was, still around your thinking behind starting in materials and outdoor space. Was that coming from an economics standpoint? things that are high margin would make more sense or I know you have a passion for the outdoors. Was it simply a decision because of that?

[00:11:28] Erum: Why did you decide to start in the material space when you have opportunities to go really in many, many different markets?

[00:11:34] Charles: think the direct answer to your question about whether it was economics is sort of resounding and enthusiastic. Yes, it's definitely about the economics. think you're also right that, I am an outdoor recreation enthusiast. I love being in the mountains and I think it would be less than forthright to suggest that that had nothing to do with it, but ultimately it was, and it is the business case.

[00:11:58] Charles: I think the most important among a variety of reasons that outdoor recreation is interesting is number one, outdoor recreation is a surprisingly large market. think when I was looking at the data, this is years ago and saw in total outdoor recreation is larger than the pharmaceutical industry in the U.

[00:12:16] Charles: S. I was incredulous reaction right there. It's like, wait, how can that be? is that correct? second is where we, as the synthetic biology industry, think about applications in use cases, I'll take the point of view that they're not all created equal, that there are some applications in use cases that just are more emotive.

[00:12:41] Charles: Where as a consequence of them being more emotive, consumers are more discerning about the materials and the ingredients that are being utilized and in the products. And. I think when we look at the consumer world in general, we've seen just a proliferation of brands that have emerged because the barriers to entry are lower than they have ever been historically as a consequence of digital technology.

[00:13:07] Charles: with that proliferation, we're all trying to compete for attention. We're all trying to compete for mindshare, The attention economy. there's really only three ways that consumer brands can compete for attention or win attention. One is the story that they tell about where the brand came from, what they stand for, what they're delivering.

[00:13:26] Charles: The second is the design of the product, how it's built. And then the third is the materials or the ingredients that make that product better. when we look at outdoor recreation, when we look at things like prestige beauty, There are these categories where consumers do care a lot. They will be prepared to pay premiums, to get better performing products.

[00:13:48] Charles: and I might juxtapose that with, say. household lubricants. one of the pieces of history from Checkerspot is when we started out again with this oil that I was referring to that feeds multiple markets. We knew that it had great qualities for lubricant applications.

[00:14:07] Charles: Things like lubricity, things like oxidative stability. we started in this really simple application set, which was a lubricant for bicycle chains. But when we were going out and talking with bike shop owners and with consumers, and we did this big pilot with one of the big tech companies here in the Bay area that has a fleet of bicycles.

[00:14:29] Charles: And people aren't spending a lot of time thinking about like, Oh, look at this. This product has, 15 percent greater oxidative stability. I'm totally going to go with that product application, that category is valuable as it is. It's not as emotive as a ski. a snowboard, a jacket, or, an anti aging serum, like in prestige beauty, there's just some products that create that emotional connection.

[00:14:56] Charles: so for all of those reasons, we thought there was, an interesting opportunity to come to market in this way. And then along the way, we learned that it's not the first time this has been done. I mean, look at carbon fiber, which was, innovated back in the 70s and 80s. It first came to market in applications like golf club shafts and tennis rackets and bicycle frames on the path to being qualified and automotive and aerospace, where we see it used more ubiquitously today.

[00:15:22] Charles: so there was both. Our analysis of the business case and the economics, but also drawing on some of these observations around, what it takes to break through into the market combined with a historical context,

[00:15:36] Karl: I find that so fascinating and want to just make a comment because, remember reading something where let's just say three fourths of American consider themselves to be outdoor enthusiasts. So across the political divide. let's just say, most people do consider themselves someone who wants to be outdoors and wants to protect nature and wants to experience nature on a regular basis.

[00:15:59] Karl: What I find fascinating about what you just said, Charlie, is this fact that it's almost like, Outdoor sports, outdoor apparel, because it does have that premium expectation to it, it sounds like it's a perfect test bed for a lot of the things that could be done with synthetic biology and biotech.

[00:16:17] Karl: The question I want to ask you is, what was it like for you as an outdoors person to get on a pair of wonder Alpine, skis or one of the snowboards, what was it like, what was the emotion that you felt as you saw your, oil, Embodied in this product.

[00:16:36] Charles: little Cottonwood Canyon, right outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, early 2019. we actually captured it on video it's something that. will be an important moment in the history of checkerspot. And I remember exactly what happened that day, who I was with. it was a really significant defining moment in the history of the company.

[00:16:59] Charles: and one that, didn't come easy. there was a lot of discussion around, you know, will it be possible? Can we do this? are we going to be able to hit the physical properties that we're targeting? And that I think is just so characteristic of the innovation journey generally.

[00:17:15] Charles: and we did, you said something a moment ago, Carl, that I think is important punctuate, which is in outdoor recreation, especially in the way that Wonder Alpine's products are engineered. They're engineered for backcountry travel. I you can use them. Many of our customers are using them inbound at resorts and whatnot, but they're engineered for backcountry travel.

[00:17:37] Charles: in the backcountry, you have a responsibility to yourself and to others to travel and to be a steward that keeps everybody safe. you can't compromise on performance because compromising on performance can literally translate to life or death situations. I think that also raised the bar in terms of what we were solving for and the term you use was test ground and that's an important part of the thought process going back to a room's question this is a an application set where you can't cut corners and you have to be as dialed diligent as possible interesting way that you phrased the question that I just wanted to punctuate and reinforce.

[00:18:19] Erum: Yeah. can we double click on the performance characteristics? Cause I'm really curious to know, how has it improved? So urethane and traditional skis, what is that doing versus what the checker spot urethane is doing? What, are the enhancements?

[00:18:33] Charles: besides the sustainability benefits and the fact that we can move past things like ABS plastic, let's get past that. the physical properties. our strength to weight damping. That's what we were targeting as we were innovating the product. We also stumbled upon with the cast urethane, which is the sidewall of the ski, so it runs longitudinally along the sides of the skis and the snowboards.

[00:18:58] Charles: that there was remarkable bond strength with the adjacent material. So there's like an adhesive component to it as well, we've seen that translates to torsional strength that gives the ski greater pop when you're coming out of turns. so that was not something, frankly, that we were targeting to be designed for, but that, ended up being another physical property that was valuable.

[00:19:21] Charles: But what I would really want to focus on coming back to the platform is that As we launched wonder Alpine, as the demand curve came in, and as we started engaging with others within the outdoor recreation industry, they started sampling the materials, we were able to not only get insight from how other brands think about qualifying materials, but greater insight in how the factories that are supplying them to think about materials and the applications development and the specifications and actually getting insight.

[00:19:53] Charles: Access those groups and into those factories that allows our platform to continue to get better. So we've learned along the way how we can continue to innovate and modify the formulations to not only hit the specifications of our customers and our partners, but also that allows wonder Alpine's products to continue to The at the bleeding edge and behind these initial materials, we have a very focused, curated portfolio of other things that we're working on either alone or in conjunction with partners that we can bring to life through the brand.

[00:20:31] Karl: Okay. I want to hit on this question again, Charlie, because I want you to paint the picture. Like you said, Cottonwood Canyon in, Utah. Did you hike in, was it skeet? Was it a snowboard? What did it feel like to you? as you pushed off and you had this, amazing thing that your company had put together under your feet.

[00:20:54] Karl: carving through the snow, going downhill. Did you have to hike it?

[00:20:57] Charles: yeah, going to be, super honest with you so again, 2019. Just to paint the picture a little bit. we founded the company in 2016. So at this point, we're, two and a half, three years into the journey is quintessential. I think with any startup, it was full gas, full on, really intense.

[00:21:16] Charles: And just on a personal level, we had, not one, but two of our children that were born about 18, 19 months apart in 2016 and 2017. we were also, a part of the, fashion for good accelerator program in the Netherlands, and I was traveling back and forth every couple of weeks. so not sleeping well, traveling a ton, really intense work.

[00:21:41] Charles: the only reason why I'm voicing that is because, as somebody who has always been an outdoor enthusiast and engaged in endurance sports, this was not a time in my life where Peak fitness, let's say

[00:21:54] Karl: You weren't getting out and running a lot every day.

[00:21:56] Charles: no, maybe once or twice a week And so on the day of, I flew from Oakland to Salt Lake.

[00:22:05] Charles: picked up at the airport, great to the trailhead. so going from sea level to, 10, 11, 000 feet. And it's not so much hiking, but skinning. so you're on skis and you're skinning uphill. it was intense. I was able to muscle my way up to the first summit, the saddle, the conditions were amazing.

[00:22:26] Charles: blue bird, blue sky, powder snow, untracked, just quintessential awesome backcountry skiing, drop into the bowl. by this point, I'm like, on a high because it's the first time that, quote unquote, algae skis had, been utilized in the world.

[00:22:43] Charles: the group that I was with, which for all part of checkerspot, they're like, All right, let's go climb that hill. And I was like, What? Like, I think I've reached limit in terms of, how I'm feeling in the fitness. the honest truth is that it was a struggle in terms of my fitness level at the time.

[00:23:01] Charles: And did climb that second pitch, but I had the help and the support of my teammates and carrying some of my gear because it was not my finest moment getting up to that other pitch. So that's the honest story of where I was at that point in life and how that went. But, I'll stop with this that I also feel it's metaphorical because as I said before, this was a defining moment it was Characterized by a lot of struggle, both in, the travel and on, the personal front and just, being a parent and like all of these demands and raising capital and, and then being there in this bluebird day with powder snow, amazing. But like in doing hard things, there's going to be struggle, there's going to be discomfort, there's going to be pain, but that's par for the course. I think over time, I've just gotten to a place where it's not that I'm seeking discomfort or pain or, wishing it for anybody, but I'm very much more attuned to the fact that the things that often provide the greatest meaning, the things that.

[00:24:07] Charles: we derive joy from, as reflected in skiing on algae skis for the first time, the journey and getting there and getting up to the top of that saddle, was challenging. Actually, and metaphorically,

[00:24:21] Karl: Amazing.

[00:24:22] Erum: No, thanks for sharing that story. that's incredible. you struggled all the way to get up there. Suffering is a part of life, it makes life a little bit more exciting.

[00:24:30] Charles: well, and the thing is, when we got to the top, I was doing my best to, put on, know, the happy face. And I was like, this is amazing. And I was legitimately happy, but I didn't reveal the pain in getting up there. And then when we got down after that first pitch, it was like, wait, we're going to do that again.

[00:24:47] Charles: And I don't know that I have it in me. this is a lot. Super memorable day.

[00:24:52] Karl: Amazing.

[00:24:53] Erum: love that fact that, you were able to start, you know, this company and create a product that also aligned with their passion, even though it was economically driven, but it was able to culminate into this moment. and that you also had talked about an analogy and then not a fiber space where they first started, in applications, golf clubs and other sporting equipments.

[00:25:14] Erum: Where do you see the analogy for, Checker spot. Okay. So you're starting with skis. there's those applications. Do you see it going on boats or what's the, big catch for you guys as you grow.

[00:25:25] Charles: Yeah. think one of the worst kept secrets or realities in the world is that the global economy runs on carbon we talk so much in the context of, a post petroleum future and, moving to, you know, a transportation fleet run on electrons and, renewable energy and the promises that exist there, the worst kept secret is that the global economy runs on carbon, like all of these polymers and all of these other applications that are vast, it's everywhere in all walks of life and everything that we do.

[00:25:56] Charles: And so when we think about the opportunity set, this is, a market that is defined in trillions. Transcribed the bigger challenge that we face and we being the synthetic biology industry in general is thinking about how to approach the challenge of focus and not spreading yourself too thin.

[00:26:15] Charles: Like you can't go and be all things to all people and, all groups. the way at Checkerspot that we've thought about that Is to be very focused in terms of our innovation capability and, three oils that I described earlier and the small portfolio of material applications. And then to put those into the hands of companies on the value chain, the on surface technologies, or, we have AK, which I mentioned, we have, the Japanese chemical company, DIC, that's been an partner.

[00:26:44] Charles: We've continued to grow and build a relationship where they have. The existing, distribution and infrastructure, we don't have to recreate that we can stay checkerspot can stay focused on its core competency. but to perhaps answer your question more specifically 5 years ago or so, we went through this process of visioning.

[00:27:03] Charles: as a team thinking about what are the different applications then creating single high res images of everything from, rockets to automobiles to, really sleek design, like home and office furnishings and prestige beauty and in all like really emotive categories.

[00:27:27] Charles: We did that, a visioning exercise to think about where can we go and how might we sequence these things the reason I wanted to voice that in addition to trying to answer your question as directly as possible is because, over the course of the last few weeks, we have gone through a process to do a similar exercise.

[00:27:45] Charles: And thinking about when we look at our portfolio of customers and partners and the things that are now on the market, let's similarly have those high res images and application sets. And I have to say, it's been, really inspiring for me because a lot of the things that are now in the world that we've done, we visions years ago.

[00:28:06] Charles: in these very unlikely applications, one example would be, oil that we're commercializing in food. And we now have, a partnership with an emerging brand called algae cooking club that, includes a partnership working with Daniel hum, who is of 11 Madison park of Michelin rated chef that. 11 medicine park is known for, it's vegan fair and is utilizing this oil because of the performance benefits. And now algae cooking club, you can find it on store shelves, at grocery stores, and they're really on a tear growing It's that concept of tapping into network effects, tapping into the innovators and disruptors and designers, that's where think the world really advances and progresses to see these different use cases now coming to life.

[00:28:58] Charles: has been really energizing.

[00:29:00] Karl: that's amazing. so inspirational, I wanted to hit on this idea, that you guys put out some news a couple months ago, you had published in frontiers and nutrition. So I think it's very related to this algae cooking club. And you talked about the development and production of a human milk analog using microalgae fermentation.

[00:29:22] Karl: And this could be used in infant nutrition. How did that come about? Was it that you were looking at infant nutrition and saw that there was this lack, which we know exists, or was it that you realized the platform could be used to develop that?

[00:29:35] Charles: me first define specifically what it is, and then I'll answer the part about why how we got there. what you're referring to is, one of the three oil profiles that we're focused on. this is called OPO, which stands for oleic, palmitic, oleic. And, you're spot on Carl, the first marquee application set is infant nutrition and OPO is really only found naturally in mother's milk. it's essential for infant development. when you think of infant nutrition. For those infant formula for those in the world that either are having challenges or can't for whatever reason, breastfeed nurse, infant nutrition is utilized the big companies try to get something similar to opioid through a chemical process.

[00:30:24] Charles: That's not. The same know that from an analytical chemistry perspective and therefore it doesn't have the same benefit as the full fat opioid does in infant nutrition. that's what it is. similar to what I was describing earlier around Defining moments and envisioning 2016, 2017, not long after we had founded, a team was small.

[00:30:47] Charles: You were about four or five people and we sat around a workspace in downtown Oakland we're visioning. We want to do something. That's a world's first. We want to do something that nobody else has done before Long story short, ended up thinking that could be an interesting target to a few years later to have achieved that and delivered it.

[00:31:09] Charles: has been a really important milestone and defining moment in the history of the company. Now, strategically, it's not just about doing something that's a world's first, but O. P. O. to put it in context with another full fat. Also, by the way, produced by microalgae and fermentation is D. H. A. And DHA was pioneered by the likes of Martek and Martek, as I think a lot of people know, was acquired by DSM and it was acquired by DSM for over a billion dollars for that one molecule.

[00:31:40] Charles: So from a business case perspective, really attractive and interesting. And, we were. Definitely studying that as a precedent in developing the condition for this target, but beyond this being a world's first, the fact that you can only find opio in, mother's milk, nobody has looked at it in the context of, other application sets, whether that's, material applications, whether that's as an ingredient in other products.

[00:32:04] Charles: And that's really intriguing the reason that I wanted to emphasize this is because coming back to commodity markets and commodity there's a shockingly small set of building blocks that we utilize to feed hundreds of thousands, millions of products. Yet there's this natural molecular diversity.

[00:32:25] Charles: Even beyond oils like, proteins and other things, but let's just stay within the context of oils is a natural molecular diversity of oils that exist today that plants produce. The problem is that those plants aren't grown in the arable regions of the world. you can't get these oils in any meaningful quantity from a barrel of crude oil.

[00:32:46] Charles: that's the thing that was the aha moment. That's what. Synthetic biology and industrial biotechnology unlocks it's the ability to take the genes from those plants, plug them into a microbial expression system, microalgae that we know gales to be able to unlock these things. And so there's this white space of natural molecular diversity that exists much in the way when we think of white space and quantum computing or white space and AI that represents massive.

[00:33:15] Charles: Transcribed Market opportunity to do totally new things. That's where I draw energy around the future of synthetic biology. It's like, how can we demonstrate the business case, the fundamental unit economics, the supply chain, the partners, the customers, the markets, the scale, all of the things to earn the opportunity.

[00:33:35] Charles: To go after that white space and O. P. O. is the tip of the spear as we do that in a very focused way.

[00:33:41] Erum: Yeah, that's incredible. I think that's 1 of the, cores and the belief we have here at grow everything, right? The idea that synthetic biology can replete a lot of these synthetic chemicals, these petroleum derived chemicals. A lot of chemicals that we just don't know about and how it affects our environments.

[00:33:58] Erum: I was talking to someone yesterday and they are in the world of luxury perfumes, but she's really focused on the naturals and she was telling me about fragrances, everything. And if you look at any type of product and we have on average where 15 different personal care products.

[00:34:13] Erum: and then women with makeup, it's another layer of product and on the ingredients label. It just says fragrance. It doesn't tell you what's in those fragrances. And one of the most toxic chemicals is actually synthetic musk. that's axe body spray.

[00:34:28] Erum: Come on. And that's like causing all sorts of damages to microorganisms and wildlife as it gets flushed down the drain, especially when people are traveling to the great outdoors. talking about that and they're going to resorts. They're bringing their products with them, they're taking showers, and it's all going.

[00:34:46] Erum: I don't want this to be a doom and gloom, but I want to point out that there's a huge opportunity, obviously on the economic side, and it's core to Checkerspot's mission on the sustainability side to rethink how things are being made, um, using synthetic biology, not synthetic chemistry, if that's the term.

[00:35:03] Erum: The term we could use, but to kind of shift gears here. There's been some movement in checkerspot on some of the personal care side. Can you talk to us about what's going on over there?

[00:35:14] Charles: Yeah. so we recently announced, have relaunched, very focused. personal care brand called weather skincare and whether drawing on the history and the legacy of wonder alpine where wonder is disemboweled so there's no vowels and it's wndr weather is similarly disemboweled so it's w t h r skincare and it is a platform of four skews that, have been meticulous and producing and developing that are targeted for the same consumer base, which is the mountain athlete.

[00:35:49] Charles: Although, with wonder Alpine historically before wonder Alpine launched a capsule collection and apparel is so focused on winter and. now with apparel, it's more, across all seasons. Weather is, definitely across all seasons and includes, sunscreen and lip balm and, a moisturizer and a cleanser that is specifically formulated and developed for the mountain athlete and beyond, it brings to life, not just Our proprietary ingredients, but, a few from our partners as well.

[00:36:24] Charles: we're really excited about in the same vein as wonder Alpine being an extension of our laboratory, whether skincare is an extension of our laboratory, to help us bring to life what's what's possible.

[00:36:36] Karl: Amazing. tell us about what products are included in the system and what biotech ingredients are in those. What do they do?

[00:36:44] Charles: Well, products in the, in the system, it's sunscreen, lip balm, Moisturizer. So aftercare and, cleanser the ingredient that I would focus on is, microalgal oil and the oil in this case in this application set, accomplishes a few things. 1, it, provides moisturizing benefits. it also provides a bit of a barrier to, the elements and, for the skin.

[00:37:10] Charles: there's evidence and data that it helps as a carrier for other ingredients that in some cases can actually penetrate skin and be helpful. then, in addition, it just has a stability and their benefits from a formulation perspective that are less visible, perhaps to the consumer, but are really important in the context of the formulation and the full package that is delivered.

[00:37:34] Charles: We're pretty excited about it. , I've been using it now for, the better part of six, nine months and I'm sold. I hope as more consumers and customers get ahold of it, that they will be too.

[00:37:46] Erum: Yeah, well, you look great. So it must be working. Yeah, curious to know, what are the common ingredients that the. Microalgal oil is replacing. what's the oil that is commonly used in some of those ingredients?

[00:38:00] Charles: Yeah. palm oil is definitely one that, , more formulators and brands are looking to move away from. there are other oils that bring with it odor. a good example of that might be like an avocado oil. there are oils that don't have as much stability. there are oils that don't have the same purity, especially in the context of sourcing oils that Um, so there's a number of different, alternatives that we're replacing and being able to compete by delivering discernible benefits, cost structure and sustainability that concept that we talked about earlier.

[00:38:45] Karl: Amazing. So, what's next for Checkerspot for, 2024 and beyond? What's, the growth plan?

[00:38:53] Charles: Yeah, I mean, It's easy for me to conceptualize because we're so focused. It's a little bit more challenging to talk in too much detail about some of the things that i'm most excited about but I would say conceptually what we've seen is product market fit and what we've seen is that we're at this moment where there just appears to be a zeitgeist Um In the world around a post petroleum future and, moving past some of the commodity vegetable oils that, may not serve us in the ways that, are sustainable going forward.

[00:39:28] Charles: as a consequence, there's just this groundswell of demand for the types of things that we and others in synthetic biology are doing. I'm really energized is that, the model has been validated. We have the data to show that we pulled in the demand curve that we have a growing portfolio of use cases and customers that putting these innovations into the hands of brands in the fashion that's de risked, it has traction.

[00:39:53] Charles: so now it's like demonstrating deeper penetration into the market where the revenue profile of the company shifts. With some of the larger relationships that we now have in place We're poised to demonstrate that and to demonstrate that having been You know capital efficient On the other side of the calculus in terms of, raising capital and then by extension capital allocation.

[00:40:20] Charles: And so 1 is greater revenue from the context of the B2B business and partners and customers. And then second, greater visibility in what I think will be surprising categories of This technology, demonstrating improved performance and products visibility areas of commerce and in areas of culture and influence that I think will be very, very compelling to show the world that, much in the same way that chat GPT demonstrated with learning language models that AI was moving from concept and, technological development to something that people could understand and is accessible, with, skis and snowboards and apparel and personal care products and things that I can't yet talk about, but are large and impactful.

[00:41:13] Charles: I think the world's going to see that this isn't a science experiment, that it's real. It's available today. there's a huge growth opportunity, not just for the innovators, but for those up and down the value chain to create and capture value. business is the way that we're going to see real tectonic shifts and transformation.

[00:41:35] Charles: in a post petroleum world?

[00:41:37] Erum: Oh, so well said. So well said. I'm really jazzed about this microalgal oil. Is that something that other people can purchase directly from you or right now you're only using it for your personal care products?

[00:41:50] Charles: Well, definitely with algae cooking club. just rave reviews from consumers. Like I'm utilizing it regularly, at home. that's, easy. You can now reorder, weather skincare and give that a shot, skis and snowboards. we also have the pollinator kit, which allows designers and innovators to utilize, urethane that we supply.

[00:42:14] Charles: there's a number of different ways, and I think you'll see more, customers. that are bringing their products to market that are featuring, biology inside coming from checkerspot.

[00:42:25] Erum: it's amazing. We'll put all that in the show notes because I'm sure people are really excited to use them. I know I am. and we'll definitely report back. You tease some big things coming up in the future later this year. So going to have to have you back on. I think you'll be the maybe the first three Pete guests that we're going to be having because there's always a lot going on.

[00:42:43] Erum: Checker spot and Charles. Thank you so much for coming back on. We really appreciate it.

[00:42:47] Karl: really appreciate it. Yeah.

[00:42:49] Charles: it's my pleasure. Like I always enjoy our conversations and, there's something that I feel compelled to say about what you're doing with the grow podcast, because it is demonstrating that across the space. There are really interesting technologies and use cases that are bringing to life this possibility and I'm not the only one I know that draws energy and inspiration from what you're doing and how you're telling the story and how you're bringing this to life.

[00:43:19] Charles: And so I just wanted to voice that. so my appreciation and thank you for doing what you're doing and thank you for having me on again and I look forward to continuing the conversation, whether it's on air or 1 on 1.

[00:43:32] Karl: Thank you so much, Charlie.

[00:43:34] Charles: Absolutely.

[00:43:35] Erum: Yep. All right. We'll talk to you soon.

[00:43:37] Charles: All right, guys, see you later.