88. Daring Dreams and Deep Tech: The Bison Ventures Blueprint for Big Wins with Ari Wright

[00:00:00] Erum: Ari, right. Thank you so much for coming on the grab everything podcast. We're excited to have you on and talk to you.

[00:00:06] Ari: Thanks for having me excited to be here.

[00:00:08] Erum: Awesome. So yeah, really excited because you have a very interesting background and now you work in a very interesting space.

[00:00:15] Erum: So you have a background in biomedical engineering and then you went towards a venture capital world. So first I would like to ask what inspired you to , pursue the path of biotech or biomedical engineering. And then how did you get into the world of venture capital?

[00:00:31] Ari: Yeah, sure. So First phase of my career, I changed directions actually a number of times, always following my inspiration and got really lucky to be able to do that and then find, an interesting set of opportunities that allowed me to pursue these curiosities. , I originally started out as a biomedical engineer, thinking that I wanted to work on cancer research and get my PhD.

[00:00:53] Ari: but, While I was at college, I realized pretty quickly that that just wasn't going to be a fulfilling job for me. so it became a little bit disillusioned actually just working in the lab and understanding that that actually wasn't going to be my life's purpose. I ended up reading a book about climate change when I was in college, that was hot, flat, and crowded by Thomas Friedman.

[00:01:13] Ari: And it's pulled me into a completely different direction. And I realized that climate change is actually the most existential challenge of our time. And that book really puts climate into a human perspective for me. I think leading up until that point, and this was 2009, I always thought of the environmental and the green movement as something very other to human beings and about saving the planets, saving the trees.

[00:01:39] Ari: And this book really. Put it into a different perspective for me. So I ended up, getting a master's degree, at USC. It was an interdisciplinary program within climate and green energy, and, didn't know anything about the venture capital industry, but. I ended up, , finding this opportunity joining a firm as an intern originally called Braemar Energy Ventures based in New York, where I got to look at all kinds of different technologies in the, what was called the cleantech space back then.

[00:02:07] Ari: after that I ended up going to business school and changing directions yet again. I decided I wanted to build something in the wellness space, again, spurred by inspiration, and ended up joining a family office for a few years. Actually. Acquiring repositioning hospitality assets in U. S. and Europe.

[00:02:24] Ari: And that was a totally different experience and really interesting. somehow, it's all come together here at bison in a way that I absolutely never ever could have predicted or hoped for. So, Ben and Tom founders of bison, I've worked with Ben at my original venture firm and bison focuses on frontier tech really broadly.

[00:02:45] Ari: So anything with novel science or deep tech at its core, that's. biotech, it's climate, it's AI, it's robotics. and somehow I was uniquely suited to join them given the diversity of my background and, the wandering of my path.

[00:03:00] Karl: give us a sense of like what the portfolio looks like? what stage are you guys investing in and what are examples of the companies that you guys have in the portfolio?

[00:03:07] Ari: Yeah, we're, seed to series A focused. this is our first fund. It's 135 million fund. but we're investing pre seed up to series B. We have 10 portfolio companies so far, and they really span the gamut of what I just described. So we have a few therapeutics companies, we have a symbiote company, we have an ag tech company, we have a company working in models and hardware, we have a robotics deal.

[00:03:34] Ari: So we're really Focused on again, anything that's using novel science has technology differentiation at its core going after very large markets. Tom and Ben, the founders previously were at cascade, the investment office for the Gates family. and this fund is, is an extension of the work that they were doing there.

[00:03:54] Ari: they decided to go out on their own a few years ago and launched bison. So that's us.

[00:03:58] Karl: That's amazing

[00:04:00] Erum: yeah, that's great. Yeah. But I was taking a look at your portfolio and one of your portfolio companies that we had the pleasure of interviewing, cause we also have the pleasure of knowing the CEO, Nicole from Alonia, that first of all, amazing company. I know that, but I would love to learn a little bit more about, what was the thinking behind investing in Alonia in particular?

[00:04:21] Ari: Yeah, yeah, Loni is great. Nicole's amazing. Tom actually knew her from when he was over at Cascade. They had invested in Ginkgo

[00:04:31] Erum: Hmm.

[00:04:31] Ari: I had a existing relationship with Nicole. Thing that got us excited about alonia is for a series a stage company that already generated so much commercial traction, which is really rare in deep tech or climate tech or however you might want to categorize what they're doing.

[00:04:48] Ari: she had already lined up. A range of partnerships with most important strategics in the world, on the, mining side on the CO2 mineralization side and had a range of these really interesting projects going after solving these intractable, waste problems. And then also this, PFAS business where there were just enormous tailwinds.

[00:05:11] Ari: And when we had. Initially started digging into the company. None of us had ever heard about PFAS or forever chemicals. we did that deal, I guess it was December, 2022. So it was the first time we were hearing about PFAS. And then, as soon as we started. Diligence in the company. It seemed like every other day there was some article about these forever chemicals and how, they were everywhere in all of our drinking water and how the regs were coming.

[00:05:36] Ari: And we felt that the strategy they were taking in P fast by deploying technology that would not only separate it, but then also building biology to degrade. It was just really compelling.

[00:05:48] Karl: Yeah, it's so interesting because it was I think the same thing for me I kind of had heard about forever chemicals and now it feels like it's everywhere I mean, there's even product to say pfos free showing up so I think we're at the very beginning on the product side where people are going to start to market things that way But it definitely, has hit the news in a really big way.

[00:06:07] Ari: totally. It's a whole Category now, and there are tons of companies trying to go after this. but excited about the relationships that they have and the technology that they're deploying and then they have a lot of other interesting projects and they're getting most traction in the mining space.

[00:06:24] Ari: as we look at climate tech. In general, we're always looking for companies that can solve an urgent commercial problem for a customer and lead with that. Never lead with, the climate and sustainability. That should be not an afterthought, but. that should be table stakes and everything that we're designing and deploying today.

[00:06:44] Ari: there are just so many interesting opportunities within mining to derive more value from low value or, and to use enzymes and microbes be able to extract that value. just a lot of really exciting projects in that space.

[00:07:01] Karl: That's also super interesting I think I probably said this when we interviewed Nicole, it's like I had read a while ago, a report on innovation in the mining space. And none of this was in there. it was more about recruiting people and maybe a mention of robotics, no mention of enzymes, no mention of biology, no mention of concentrating things at a higher level.

[00:07:20] Karl: And, being it. I'll say extractive, even though we don't really like using that word, but being better about extracting things and then being able to regenerate the land that you were working with. none of it was anything that struck me as particularly innovative.

[00:07:33] Karl: so I've always been excited about what alone is doing and have always been excited by just using biology as being a way of. Improving the mining space and you've got a good friend who's in the mining space at Rio Tinto.

[00:07:45] Erum: Yes. Yeah. my friend works more on the, civil society outreach side, so is looking for, solutions that are trying to address what mining has done, you know, reach into as a large, large company. and they have. Their mining sites, there are, um, some issues around them, whether they are environmental or societal, but it sounds like the company is really trying to make a strong effort in ensuring that their impact is reduced mining is extractive.

[00:08:18] Erum: very harsh. On the planet. but if you can do it in a way where there's offsets or, you're reducing your impact on the environment and society, then it's great. It's great that they're making these efforts. It's great that my friend has. That job, there is a role to, engage society.

[00:08:35] Ari: Absolutely. Yeah. The mining industry is. Think at an interesting point. They're so critical to the future of the energy transition. We need critical minerals. We need more materials to, build electric vehicles and wind turbines and consumer electronics and everything. historically, these have not been, sustainable companies and they've not. Developed in the most sustainable way. And so they're at this crossroads where we need them to become more sustainable. And then along the way, I think we're going to have to just really drive more sustainability into their operations so that we're not doing More harm than good. And there are a bunch of interesting companies trying to help in that regard.

[00:09:15] Ari: And totally agree. I think these, companies are doing their best to innovate. All of them have corporate venture capital arm. Several of them are investors in alone. Yeah. And they're really looking for ways to just do better. And hopefully, like I said, do better and do things more efficiently because there's so much waste within the mining industry right now.

[00:09:36] Ari: It's not only bad for the planet, but it's not good for their financials. so that's

[00:09:40] Ari: really interesting area for venture backable technology to play a role, where these customers are getting really excited about deploying these new technologies

[00:09:51] Karl: we need more of those stories to be told because it's just too easy for people to be like, oh, you want to go to E. V. S. But do you realize what the mining infrastructure looks like for that? in. Congo or whatever.

[00:10:03] Karl: And so it's really easy to poo poo the transition because people are looking at one piece of it without really understanding the entire ecosystem as it were. And we just did a interview with someone in Queensland, Australia where their main product is coal. the coal industry knows that that eventually is gonna go away, and they're really working on transitioning the workforce.

[00:10:28] Karl: away from that into something that is much more Eco friendly, but really with a focus on biotechnology

[00:10:34] Erum: will also add the, know, you're mentioning the cost of the mining efforts right there, like how much it's costing them to even, maintain or even close down a mine. So, my friend told me they spend 30 billion a year on mining closures. And. we tend to is doing that, responsibly where there's a lot of other mining companies that sell off to a ghost shell company, the rest of the mine, and then they just leave it like, it's not my responsibility anymore.

[00:11:02] Erum: So, anyway, I mean, we're definitely going to have to have, the call back on and I mean, we've talked about it the whole episode. I mean, I'd be happy to do that. You have other companies.

[00:11:13] Ari: maybe I'll share another one in a different category, but similarly using biology, similarly going after climate. that is a company by the name of Interplants. have you guys heard of Interplant?

[00:11:24] Erum: No,

[00:11:24] Erum: but tell us, tell our audience

[00:11:25] Ari: Yeah, so Interplant is in the ag space, and they are genetically engineering row crops, so corn, cotton, soybean, to fluoresce a signal that can be detected by a satellite or a camera on the back of a tractor.

[00:11:41] Ari: When that specific plant is under a given stress, so it could be fungal pressure, insect pressure. They need fertilizer, so their platform is really enabling crop by crop precision farming. At the earliest stages, so right now, crop losses are a huge problem. Farmers either apply pesticides in a broad spectrum way, just prophylactically, which is wasteful and, creates runoff and it is not great for the environment or our health.

[00:12:15] Ari: or they wait until they see an outbreak of insect or fungal pressure and then apply and it's usually too late. so you can harness the plant's natural immune system to detect those really, really early signals. It's almost the same as like your Apple watch telling you that your heart rate variability is off before you're actually feeling sick, And farms are just getting so much bigger, that to give these farmers that visibility into what's happening on the farm so they can plan so they can act is really powerful. And John Deere actually led the series. A of that company we came in behind them. they're developing, so their technology will be licensed to seed companies.

[00:12:58] Ari: they have a partnership with Syngenta actually, who's looking to design really precise, specific crop inputs that would go with inter plants seed technology. and then you have a detection tech. So that might be with a John Deere tractor, or, satellite company. So we really get excited about, This company in the ag space, because we've found that, getting that entire ecosystem on board to support. This paradigm shift is really necessary, and there are a lot of companies that are selling point solutions within ag, and it's just very hard to get that adoption. and we've found there are just these big ag is big to get everyone on board and to have this win win solution.

[00:13:41] Ari: That's good for John Deere. It's good for the crop input companies. It's good for the farmers. is really unique interesting to us.

[00:13:48] Karl: yeah that text sounds so science fiction there's a japanese science fiction novel from I think the early 2010s called gene mapper, which is about eco terrorists Genetically modifying plants that you can detect from satellites, so as soon as you're saying that it reminded me of that particular story, and that supposedly takes place in the 2040s, and there's a lot of controversy about the way they are genetically modifying plans.

[00:14:15] Karl: but this sounds just like that to me,

[00:14:18] Ari: Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. I'll have to check that out for sure. It's interesting. So bison we find a lot of deep tech companies and deep tech VCs have these sort of like science project technologies. And we really steer away from that. We're very much about commercial traction now. what are the solutions that can get into market and really scale massive revenue.

[00:14:40] Ari: And if you look at interplanet on the surface, you're like, wow, this is so science fictiony. This is wild and it is wild. It's a. Radical new paradigm for farming, but because of what I said, you can see this transition taking place and there, have a lot of farmers on board to have an investor, a big farming conglomerate group up in Canada, backing them.

[00:15:05] Ari: and like I said, just the largest strategics that are all, interested in making this, happen. So we think Even though it's science fictiony, it's not so far out to imagine this transition taking place in the not, too far off, hopefully before 2040,

[00:15:21] Karl: right? No, not at all. I mean, you'd probably read gene mapper you would say, it sounds very familiar. I think they also use crickets as one of the ways to modify the plants, which that, whole organism engineering hasn't happened yet, but, we had worked at a company called micro pep where the whole thing was really being about.

[00:15:37] Karl: being able to, orchestrate the way MRNAs or micro RNAs worked in a plant, so you could really like control traits at a much more granular level than you would normally be able to do, which also sounded like science fiction. but they've also had huge success and I just love that Bison's thesis is really like.

[00:15:56] Karl: how can you solve an urgent problem? And what kind of commercial traction do you guys have? Because I think, like you say, we see a lot of deep tech and even biotech VCs where it's really just focused on the science problem. not necessarily being focused on the commercial side.

[00:16:09] Karl: And I hate to say that, Iram, is that okay for me to say?

[00:16:14] Erum: you can say whatever you want. It was, free speech. So,

[00:16:17] Ari: I'm definitely guilty of falling in love with the science sometimes

[00:16:21] Erum: oh yeah,

[00:16:22] Ari: to pull me back or they're like, Sorry, no,

[00:16:24] Ari: this is too far out there.

[00:16:28] Erum: that's a scientist in you. You you're going to get there, you especially when you see some founders, which I would love to talk to you about founders and what you look for in founders, but, just the science parts, because your gears are turning and you're like, I can see how this is helpful.

[00:16:42] Erum: but the science can only take you so far, You need the people that can actually make the partnerships. You need the Nicole's of the world that can go out there and hustle and get those clients and get those partnerships.

[00:16:52] Ari: Yeah, exactly. And we even say a lot of times, the best technology doesn't always win,

[00:16:57] Erum: Yeah.

[00:16:58] Ari: most scalable technology. And that's, unfortunate because you might find someone that's invented something and you're like, wow, yeah, this is a better way of doing this. And it's more, compelling on certain dimensions, but, the realities of the systems and which we're playing just, might not enable that technology to

[00:17:18] Ari: ever reach market.

[00:17:19] Ari: so

[00:17:21] Erum: Yeah. I do have one question about interplanetary. It's the genetic detection. how is it being

[00:17:26] Erum: detected?

[00:17:27] Ari: essentially the plant is expressing a fluorescent protein it's not detectable by the human eye. It's not actually glowing. I mean, it's fun to talk about glow in the dark plants. It's not actually glowing, but you can act it, through computer vision or their satellite.

[00:17:42] Ari: And they actually just, it was a few months ago, maybe six months ago they proved that. They could detect the signal through satellite.

[00:17:48] Karl: amazing.

[00:17:50] Ari: Yeah.

[00:17:51] Karl: We were just talking about companies that don't succeed, even though they might have the best technology. They might not have, the right commercial traction. We talk a lot about marketing since we run a marketing firm.

[00:18:01] Karl: do you have any examples of companies that you guys have worked with that had a lot of promise, but maybe didn't quite? Make it, I mean, you don't have to share the company, but what went wrong, and we've got a bunch of those,

[00:18:11] Ari: I mean, yeah, we have a bunch of those two. So myself, Ben and Tom, we like to say, we're clean tech 1. 0 survivors. So we were all in that first wave of clean tech investing, late 2000s and early aughts. and there were a lot of failures, some of it was, Silicon Valley investors that had come in and then pulled out, but that exuberance, which we're nervous about today, by the way, what we've seen over the last 5 years in the climate space, people piling in and a lot of, really amazing visions and ideas and technologies, but, super capital intensive.

[00:18:49] Ari: So, A lot of them producing commodities, and. not able to derive enough value in a sufficient amount of time. so we talk a lot about biofuels 1. 0. There were these large centralized plants. They needed to access decentralized feedstock sources that were expensive. And then they were trying to make commodity fuels and chemicals.

[00:19:14] Ari: And so many of those companies just went up in flames over time. And I think the companies of today are so much smarter and have so many of them on your podcast, where they're, accessing cheaper feedstocks, some of them now even CO2. they're going after higher value chemicals to start.

[00:19:33] Ari: Maybe they're doing modular plans. They're co locating near feedstock and they're just being a lot more thoughtful about how you build a company in the space. some of these companies are just not going to be venture backable, unfortunately, and we need government dollars to help assist in the energy transition and to fully get off petrochemicals.

[00:19:54] Ari: And I think we're still figuring out how to do that and how that's going to look over time. but it's just extremely difficult to manufacture things and to manufacture commodities, especially when you're competing against a heavily subsidized other industry that's existed for a very long time. so, yeah, just lot of companies in that vein that failed, I think, to appreciate.

[00:20:17] Ari: The brutal realities Of what they were up against. raising I blame investors to write investors for money companies take on too much money grow and they don't grow intelligently in certain times where there's just more capital than can be really taken up.

[00:20:34] Ari: So a lot of failures and challenges. I won't speak to any specifics, but, In general, deep tech and climate tech, we're just, like I mentioned, always looking for companies that can solve that urgent commercial problem, not make anyone pay a premium for what you're doing. and do so in a capital efficient manner, leverage, partnership capital leverage, not dilutive capital to every level of leverage, equipment, financing, everything you can to bring down your CapEx.

[00:21:01] Ari: And there are a lot of investors that will just completely ignore these kinds of companies, Bison's reason for existing is we see an opportunity because there are companies where we think you can build intelligent companies that are venture backable, that are deep tech, that do require raising a lot of capital, but you just have to do that a certain way because it is harder than building A software

[00:21:24] Ari: company and an ass.

[00:21:27] Karl: right.

[00:21:27] Erum: Yeah. And you mentioned that, bison invest. from pre seed to series B, how much traction are you looking for in a pre seed company? And, in terms of revenue, which is very challenging, but maybe that happens or are you looking for other things instead?

[00:21:42] Ari: Yeah, we're looking for, generally some kind of technical proof of concept combined with some commercial signal. Sometimes that can come in the form of revenue. Oftentimes that can just come in the form of. If you design this drug, there is a massive market waiting to be served, Or sometimes it can come in the form of.

[00:22:03] Ari: partnership with a large strategic that is bought into what you're doing and illustrates that you're solving an urgent commercial problem for them. So commercial traction for us can come in a number of different flavors and we look at. So many different kinds of companies, everyone looks different.

[00:22:21] Ari: So I know there are venture firms that focus on SAS or focus on whatever, and they have these very specific metrics, a seed stage company needs this, and they have these KPIs. That's so far from what we do. every company is really different, but whatever stage we're investing in, we just want to understand that there's a massive market.

[00:22:44] Ari: And, some customer that is demonstrated that the value proposition of this company is, very

[00:22:50] Ari: real.

[00:22:54] Erum: I love the fact that you're looking at different types of companies. In biotech itself, right? So for us, we've seen, VCs that only focus on biopharma, and then others that focus on climate tech. But you guys have done both because those are different types of strategies, right?

[00:23:10] Erum: Biopharma is like, okay, get to IND and then sell off the asset. and then you have the commodity side of bioindustrials.

[00:23:17] Erum: have you seen other investors do that as well? And if so, can you list them off?

[00:23:22] Karl: Yeah. We'd like to know that.

[00:23:24] Ari: Yeah. Great question. I know I have found that, if we had a category where I think we were especially well suited to invest it, it is at the intersection here. There are, deep tech funds that are a little bit scared of biology.

[00:23:39] Ari: There are some, I think, Lux they do, yeah, for Lux, Lux will do that, Lightspeed, I think even generalist VCs that are starting to do more of that, Cosla is one, but yeah, this is a huge category for us, where tech meets bio, and I know people have mixed feelings about that term tech bio.

[00:24:01] Ari: I tend to like it. I think it says what it means. but using technology, whether it's computation, machine learning AI or genetic engineering or robotics to work with biology, whether that is on the human health side where you're designing better drugs, faster and cheaper, or whether it's on the climate side.

[00:24:23] Ari: Where it could be any number of things, designing seeds, using biology to perform a certain function by manufacturing. Tom and Ben got a lot of exposure when they were at Cascade. There were early investors in Ginkgo and beyond and impossible. and then also therapeutics and then Caleb on our team, is really.

[00:24:41] Ari: Deeply knowledgeable in the therapeutic space use that innovation endeavors. That's another firm that does this very well, I think. I have this weird kind of like biomedical background and then climate. We understand how complex biology is. We appreciate that.

[00:24:55] Ari: We also appreciate how powerful it is. this is, one category that, excites us immensely. And particularly with advances in AI, what that might enable in terms of, unlocking insights from biological data. we have another company that's Generating a lot of biological data.

[00:25:16] Ari: I'll talk about the company now. It's a company called Viva Dine. They're

[00:25:18] Ari: using robot. Have you heard of them?

[00:25:21] Erum: Yeah, but tell us, tell the audience, I'm excited. This is such a cool company.

[00:25:25] Ari: Yeah, So Vidi you know, it's not a, new concept. People have been trying to do organoids and organ on a chip for a long time, and the challenge has been. consistency and repeatability, and they've really nailed that using robotics and microfluidics and AI machine learning, and they are building models of human tissue, and, using that for preclinical research being able to recapitulate human biology better than mouse models and, do some of those experiments.

[00:25:55] Ari: Thanks. Earlier and differently, I know we're gonna talk about them. Talk a little bit. That's an area I care really deeply about. I view view. 9 is fem tech company because they're building placenta models and, different tissue types that, maybe the mouse model isn't as effective or.

[00:26:12] Ari: we have a very limited understanding of female biology generally. So they're definitely one of my favorite thumbtack companies out there that we didn't originally think of them in those terms. so they're, today selling services to big pharma and they have partnerships with some of the biggest pharma companies in the world, but that are also, as you can imagine, generating a ton of data through this.

[00:26:32] Ari: And so there's really interesting opportunity ahead for them as everybody talks about building a foundation model for biology, but whatever that ends up meaning, they're generating a lot of this really interesting data that will ultimately help us understand biology and its complexity

[00:26:52] Ari: in a interesting way.

[00:26:55] Erum: Yeah. I'm, curious, if you know, about VivaDyne and how they are, replicating human tissue, are they also replicating like immune system with that? Are they like representing it very accurately in terms of the complexity of that, that was actually going on on in our bodies?

[00:27:10] Ari: they have different models for different tissue types, and I know a lot of their early effort has been around bone marrow model, for example. I guess the question that I always think about with this company is, okay, well, if you have these different tissue types when there's also this, systems thing going on

[00:27:26] Ari: and you're not really incorporating that, how important is that?

[00:27:30] Ari: But, I think our models right now are so crude. Our understanding of biology is so crude. So this is a starting point. And what they've been able to do is unbelievable. Just in terms of, again, growing these, tissues in the lab, it's. Super science

[00:27:46] Ari: fiction. but

[00:27:48] Erum: Yeah, we've seen, companies, for example, is it United Therapeutics, Carl?

[00:27:54] Karl: Yeah, they're one of them.

[00:27:55] Erum: Yeah, doing the Xenoplant where they are raising pigs. To, have close to human, like organs and that's for transplants, though, not just for testing drugs, but,

[00:28:06] Ari: so cool.

[00:28:07] Erum: because it's being grown in the animal, it takes into consideration all systems.

[00:28:12] Erum: I think that's always the consideration, because we also have, companies that are, running on mouse models. So then you can simulate a mouse model. and run a test through that versus the organ and chip. So they're like anti organ on a chip because they're saying that it's not fully one to one representing the whole system, but then it's like, do you need the whole system?

[00:28:33] Erum: is it just as toxicity study versus an efficacy study?

[00:28:37] Ari: Right. Right. And these guys are just starting with some of this, early talks work. And I think, we're probably going to need everything, But this costs, 3 billion to develop, an average drug, this is a way to essentially just move more efficiently, and maybe you're not operating with perfect data, But to be able to do that earlier in a drug development process, gather more information about talks is, valuable to these companies. But yeah, I think it's a great question. And I always think about to the extent that we, get to AGI and, these AI models can really reason. How much more data.

[00:29:17] Ari: Will we really need, if I were to read like every biology textbook and every scientific paper that's ever been written in natural language, what would they be able to? What would I be able to derive about? how our current paradigms of understanding about biology, where they're missing, what experiments we need to run, right now we're in this age where everybody's talking about data, data, data.

[00:29:46] Ari: I'm curious to know what the next five years will look like and how much more data. Do we need to build up our understanding of biology, or maybe will we get to a place where a I can reason in a way where we actually don't need that much more data and we can trust a I to just comprehend the complexity, the infinite complexity of biology in a way that the human mind could never possibly do and experiments that the human mind could never possibly experiment.

[00:30:19] Ari: Based design in terms of the way that we're comprehending.

[00:30:23] Karl: right. That's wild. because like my instinct is we still need a lot more data just because we don't really understand biology, on so many levels, but if AGI exists or, then maybe you're right. Maybe it would just. be very specific about the kind of data it would need to reach a certain amount of knowledge that we would be looking for the

[00:30:41] Ari: Yeah. I think the greatest AI researchers in the world right now disagree on whether we're two years away or 10 years away. We're never going to reach AGI. So who knows, but these are the things I like to think about. And, I'm so excited for the day and I hope it's sooner rather than later where I can have this.

[00:31:01] Ari: AI agent that really understands what's going on with me is streaming data in real time off of me. She's on the edge. My data is completely private. I completely trust her she can detect what's going on and tell me what to do to rebalance. my biology, Whether it's eating in a different way, sleeping in a different way, taking a supplement.

[00:31:23] Ari: everything we're doing right now is, fairly crude. And I think there's just so much opportunity ahead when it comes to AI and biology. It's definitely the most exciting piece of part of AI for me. we've always been trying to understand ourselves throughout time.

[00:31:41] Ari: that's what we do as humans. this is just think an accelerant for what we've been doing

[00:31:46] Ari: since.

[00:31:49] Erum: Yes, absolutely. a lot of people working in the tech space, working on AI, that don't even have biology degrees are coming into the biology world, I've been seeing a lot of founders, that are making for drug discovery. that's everyone's tagline.

[00:32:02] Erum: I think there's over like 800 companies, that are in the space globally. and a lot of them are coming from. the data side. from your perspective, how important is it to have a biology background when you're starting a biology company, in terms of being the CEO or CTO or how important is that?

[00:32:21] Erum: That's something that can be learned or something that can just, That you need.

[00:32:26] Ari: My personal opinion is it's definitely something that you need. the more you start to learn about biology, the more you understand how little we know about biology. I remember being like, Oh my gosh, I thought everybody understood so much more than they do.

[00:32:42] Ari: we're all doing the best we can as a human species. And what we've been able to do is unbelievable. And, the drugs we've been able to design and it's Unbelievable. however, at the same time, there's so little we know.

[00:32:55] Ari: I think the less, you know, the less you understand about how little we know. And then I think that's a problem when you're trying to build a company in the space. But at the same time, I think bringing people together from both disciplines is great. And everything we do at Bison is highly multidisciplinary.

[00:33:14] Ari: we love seeing teams like that, and we think the best solutions and companies will require bringing that all together under one roof. I do think there's definitely a place for people that come from computer science to get into this but I hope they're partnering with people that have PhDs in biology.

[00:33:35] Karl: Yeah. So, you touched on it. And one of the things we wanted to talk to you about was around fem tech, which we know is the understanding of female biology is sadly worse than male biology. we hope that that's changing. We had Laura McKinney talk about the funding mechanisms for research into women's biology, and you're passionate about it.

[00:33:55] Karl: You've written about it. Talk to us a little bit about that. what are some of the key information gaps? What kind of companies are you looking at in that space? what gets you excited?

[00:34:05] Ari: yeah, it's. a very exciting area and a very challenging area, just like all the areas I'm interested in. I'm drawn to complex and unknown realms. So climate, female biology and neuro and the brain, these are my three areas of interest at the moment. People are starting to become really aware.

[00:34:28] Ari: Wow. There are so many diseases that disproportionately affect women, differentially affect women, and they uniquely affect women that we're just woefully misunderstand. And, everybody talks about women weren't included in clinical trials until the nineties. That is problematic. What I like to say, though, is there was a reason for that.

[00:34:48] Ari: And that was because in the 70s, we had the linomide scandal, Where all of these women were given this drug and thousands of babies were born dead or with severe, Defects. the reason women weren't included in clinical trials is we wanted to protect women and it's great. Now we're saying, well, shit, we need to understand more about female biology.

[00:35:09] Ari: so many women today are having this come to Jesus moment where they're like, Oh my God, you know, I'm 30 and I don't know anything about my cycle or anything about my biology. And this is not fair. And that's true. I like to remind myself that, We did that because, 100 years ago, we wanted to join the workforce so we wanted to deemphasize how different we were.

[00:35:31] Ari: We wanted to deemphasize our menstrual cycles. And, I found this, Harvard scientist woman who testified that like basically that her period wasn't a big deal, And now today, women are so like, I want to work with my cycle and understand my cycle. And it's not fair that I've been like suppressing this.

[00:35:51] Ari: So I just think it's about evolution. And we're now in a time and a place where women have gotten more rights and we're working. And we now want to express ourselves as women. We want to understand ourselves as women. We want the world to appreciate the ways in which we're different. in terms of investing in the space, I get really frustrated because I look at a lot of really cool companies.

[00:36:11] Ari: I always run into the same challenge, which is market size. even though women make up 50 percent of the population, so often these companies, either the willingness to pay for whatever the product or service that they're building is very low, or maybe they're going after a small number of women with a higher value proposition.

[00:36:31] Ari: the market sizes tend to not meet that venture threshold. And when you end up doing the math, you're like, this is a one to 3 billion market opportunity, and that sucks, but hopefully there'll be capital flowing to these companies, whether they're, building a diagnostic for endometriosis or, there are so many really cool femtech companies out there that I'm just.

[00:36:54] Ari: When I, look at them, it's, it's very hard to see them as venture scalable businesses. I do think that, one thing I'll say that sort of bothers me, but I think it's okay. There'll be a lot of femtech companies that don't look like femtech companies on the surface, but are great for women.

[00:37:10] Ari: And that's any company that's, working on precision personalization, that's embracing diversity of biology. That is really going to be great for women's health. I mentioned VivaDine before, not a femtech company on the surface, but what they're doing, I think is really going to move the needle for women's health.

[00:37:27] Ari: but I do think there's immense opportunity for companies that can generate data on women while also providing some kind of Value beyond the data generation that data to unlock insights about female biology it's tricky. It's sort of 23 and me model. but you need to have that primary value proposition 1st.

[00:37:49] Ari: It can't just be about data. there have been a lot of companies, not just in Femtech, but broadly that try to make data as the primary value prop, it should be a benefit on top of whatever the product or services that you're providing to that consumer.

[00:38:04] Ari: so I think there'll be some opportunities for companies that can do that. there's. The healthcare system is so broken. I'm not even going to pretend to understand how it works because I don't, but we see a lot of companies that are innovating outside of it, which is unfortunate on the one hand, because people are going to have to pay out of pocket for some of these products and services, but I think is a necessary part about really making change.

[00:38:32] Ari: So there've been a number of different companies that are, taking blood work and giving a bunch of biomarkers and maybe trying to give people more agency around their own health. And all that is cash pay out of pocket. And it's, not fair. And I'd like to think that we can drive innovation within our healthcare system, but it just is not fair.

[00:38:51] Ari: Extremely difficult. So those are just some of my frustrated thoughts.

[00:38:58] Ari: It's an area I

[00:38:59] Erum: God.

[00:38:59] Ari: really believe in. And want to see the female Elon Musk, just reimagine healthcare for women and build something really, really bold outside of the healthcare system. And I hope to see that at some point, I think I make a lot of analogies.

[00:39:13] Ari: Between femtech and climate, both of these industries require you to embrace, , again. I keep using this word complexity, if you think about climate as this other thing, no one's going to care about it. You have to think about ourselves as a part of this larger ecosystem that is interconnected.

[00:39:32] Ari: I think with women's health, we have to understand that, Women's health, mother's health, our children's health, public health issue. I think we need government help to push that along. And then in climate, the most successful climate company of all time was Tesla. It doesn't really look like a climate company.

[00:39:49] Ari: Elon just decided to build a better car and a better driving experience. so going back to Femtech, just companies that are building better health care experiences and just doing things better, appreciating the diversity of biology. Those are the kinds of companies that I think are going to like really, really move the needle and, present

[00:40:13] Ari: outsized returns for investors.

[00:40:15] Erum: yeah. I mean, I love that. lot of what you said is what I've been thinking as well. So I'm glad you articulated it. I mean, I'm definitely not gonna repeat what you said, but I do appreciate the analogy and the relationship between climate and Femtech. It reminds me of another VC we had on the pod.

[00:40:31] Erum: Do you know Kristen Ellis of Lower Carbon Capital?

[00:40:33] Ari: I don't know her, but I know

[00:40:35] Ari: lower carbon. Well, yeah.

[00:40:36] Erum: Yeah. And went to the pot. She said that the Venn diagram between biology and climate is a circle because it is the same thing. it's all interconnected. The earth is biology. when you think about it that way, then it is this whole system. and you said, mother and child, but mother earth, we are on it.

[00:40:53] Erum: I love it. I see a lot of visuals. I mean, we are podcast. So this is audio, but,

[00:40:57] Ari: Yeah.

[00:40:58] Ari: I like, I

[00:40:59] Erum: I thank you so much.

[00:41:00] Ari: like to say a lot. We're one thing waking up to what we are. And

[00:41:05] Erum: Did you make that up?

[00:41:06] Ari: I did. I think so. Uh,

[00:41:09] Erum: writer.

[00:41:10] Karl: Yeah,

[00:41:10] Ari: yeah, I definitely like branches it to the spiritual, which I try not to do at work. but yeah, the more that we are waking up to what we are, the more that this systems thinking will be Embraced and we'll understand that we're the same and life on Earth is all one thing.

[00:41:29] Ari: And I know that's a radical paradigm

[00:41:32] Ari: that freaks people out. It sounds kind of woo woo,

[00:41:34] Ari: but

[00:41:35] Erum: not to me.

[00:41:36] Ari: that's the natural evolution of things and where we're going. But in the near term, can't ask. agents, whether human or corporates to go against their best interest. that goes back to how we think about climate is this has to be in the interest of the individual.

[00:41:52] Ari: You can't ask someone to eat climate friendly foods that, and sacrifice their health by eating, processed climate friendly foods. that's never going to work. that is my nature. So how do we design things that are actually just better and better for all of

[00:42:08] Ari: us and more sustainable?

[00:42:10] Erum: before we wrap it up, I have one quick question.

[00:42:13] Ari: Ah,

[00:42:14] Erum: One quick question. Have you ever had an inclination to go back into the lab? Do you ever want to get your hands dirty or even start a company? Cause you see so many things. You are such a big thinker. Did you ever get an itch? maybe,

[00:42:26] Erum: 100%. I mean, the idea of going to get a PhD and something specific that I just really want to study definitely appeals every day. I'm just like, I wish I had a full day to like, Think about this or understand this I don't have enough time to learn about all the things that I'd like to

[00:42:45] Ari: learn, but to answer your question.

[00:42:47] Ari: Yes, for sure.

[00:42:49] Erum: We have AI too, to satisfy something. So asking those questions, because that is a lot of the science. Science is asking the right questions, So just do do do do. If you guys aren't seeing me, doing the do do do do is just me typing on a, computer prompting AI.

[00:43:06] Karl: that's what he runs AI computer sounds like when she types into it. It goes, dude, dude, dude, dude.

[00:43:15] Ari: Yeah, if I had, millions and millions and millions of dollars, I would definitely just want to be running my own research, all kinds of different. designing experiments and learning.

[00:43:26] Erum: well, you could raise some capital. know a fund that's into deep tech that might be interested in your idea, but this has been so much fun. I had such a great time.

[00:43:41] Karl: Yeah. Thanks for joining us. Sorry. I really appreciate it and love that. we didn't talk about it, but love that we do have a lot of friends in common.

[00:43:48] Ari: Absolutely. Yeah. We didn't talk about it again, but ferment team is, so great down here and have, monthly calls with those guys to learn about what they're building. Jason Kakianis.

[00:43:59] Karl: Yeah. Yeah, I just texted him yesterday because I haven't talked to him since Hey, I saw him for like a second at symbio beta and we talked to each other a bunch to catch up at ferment And I was hoping when i've been southern california that I could catch up with him in person because we never get that one on one time

[00:44:14] Ari: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Come down to LA.

[00:44:18] Karl: Yeah, I mean I come regularly because my parents are still in ventura My sister's in newport. So next time i'm out. we'll go grab coffee.

[00:44:24] Ari: Let me know. Please. That would be

[00:44:26] Ari: great. Well, thank you guys so much for having me. It was really nice to meet

[00:44:29] Ari: you. Fun conversation.

[00:44:31] Karl: Yeah. Thank you

[00:44:32] Karl: Enjoy your

[00:44:32] Erum: Yep. We'll have to have you back on as you make more investments and you learn more. And especially if a GI comes back online or comes online. It wasn't here before, but when a GI comes online, we'll have you on to chit chat about it if we can. I don't know what happens after that.

[00:44:47] Karl: Yeah, exactly. Yeah,