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Climate Capital Bio is a Pre-Seed venture fund backing biotech climate solutions that allow the decarbonization of the world's largest and least sustainable industries. Led by founders-turned investors Jenny Kan and Michael Luciani, the fund is built on Jenny’s expertise as lead engineer in a Nobel Laureate’s synthetic biology lab & Michael's experience in politics and as a founder with a successful exit.
This post is written by Mackenzie Scurka: Program Director at Juniper Zero. Launched by Climate Capital Bio, Juniper Zero is an incubator equipping early stage founders with the tools they need to grow their climate biotech startups.
Climate Capital Bio held its first Annual General Meeting earlier this year, a success thanks in part to a panel of awesome guest speakers. Among them was Dr. Austin Che, co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks.
Ginkgo is the leading horizontal platform for synthetic biology, making biology easier to engineer. They provide customers across diverse markets the tools for programming cells to enable their biological innovations. Ginkgo is also building a global infrastructure for biosecurity to prevent, detect, and respond to biological threats. Ginkgo was the first biotech company to join Y Combinator back in 2014, and they went public on the NYSE in 2021. The company is now valued today at over $2B.
CCB Co-GP Dr. Jenny Kan interviewed Dr. Che, and we’re excited to share some of his insights on the past, present, and future of biotech, within climate and beyond.
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For those who are not familiar with what Ginkgo Bioworks does, can you give us a quick overview of the company?
Today what we do is provide highly automated cell programming services for companies in a wide range of industries, including pharma, ag, and industrials. Our mantra is that we want to make biology easier to engineer for you–we don't develop our own products. We are investing in the data, the automation, the software, the physical and the virtual infrastructure that is common across many biological projects, and we have scale by running that all on a centralized platform.
From your perspective, how has the journey of building a synthetic biology company changed in the last 15 years or so?
I haven't personally started another company [in the last 15 years], but I've talked to a lot of startups. I think it's definitely easier. There are a lot more companies and a lot more investment going through Synbio now than 2008, for sure. There are investors whose entire thesis is synthetic biology, which was unthinkable back in 2008. And I think market adoption, which is the pull for all this, is certainly accelerating. There are actually products you can buy today. And Ginkgo and other companies now exist to help new companies get off the ground, both by providing a roadmap for new companies and also to support them with a more developed ecosystem and infrastructure. There's also a lot more governmental support now, with a focus on the bioeconomy from the Biden administration, and I think that has shifted a lot of the discussions.
What industries do you think are currently right for synthetic biology to come in and make a huge difference?
My view is that the areas that are most exciting for Synbio are things that are specifically unique to biology, and I think one of the biggest is in climate around carbon capture and carbon manipulation in general… I think now is as good a time as any to focus our efforts on solving that global problem, and it’s hard to imagine what other technology could solve something on that scale.
The other area that I'm particularly interested in, and this is less about what will make money, are areas of consumer biotech– generally, ‘whimsical biology’ or ‘fun biology.’ One of the projects we're working on is a glowing plant. You know, it's a petunia that glows. It was just approved by the USDA for sale and you can buy it today, and the feedback on it has been amazing. Like, so many people want it. And it's just a plant. It doesn't even glow enough to be useful as a light, but it's just cool. It's awesome. And why do I think that something like this is useful for the industry? Because it gets people excited by biology. For example, no one cared about AI until Chat GPT. Mobile phones are used more as entertainment devices than they are for making phone calls. And today, biology is associated with health, food, not really fun stuff. I think showing that biology can be fun will get people excited and show what bioengineering can do for the world.
I just ordered one of those glowing plants for my backyard. I can't wait to see what it actually looks like. When we think about creating these consumer facing products, we see food that’s produced by engineered biological systems, we see materials. What are some of the friction points that you are seeing that make biology more difficult to get into the hands of consumers?
Certainly regulation is one of them. Like the glowing plant that you ordered–I think that version has been available for many years. It was just sitting with the USDA for a couple years for approval. So I think regulation is something people worry about, including consumer acceptance and GMOs and so forth. But I think [concerns around GMOs] are not going to be as big of an issue as people think. You know, people will say that they’re anti-GMO, but in the end they want the glowing plant. I think it's just about changing people's mindset about what a GMO is and what it can do.
Glowing plants by Light Bio
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Thank you again to Dr. Austin Che for shedding light on the journey of synthetic biology and its transformative potential across diverse industries, from addressing global challenges like climate change to sparking curiosity and delight through consumer-facing innovations. Despite regulatory hurdles and societal perceptions, the evolution of biotech continues to accelerate. We’re excited to back entrepreneurs building a sustainable future where biological engineering improves lives and ecosystems alike!
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Note: The Author’s opinions are their own and not necessarily representative of Climate Capital.
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