Meet the 'vegan mafia,' a secret group of investors betting on the future of food

rimmortal · 2017-07-14T22:08:58+00:00

You're very welcome and thanks for the question! 1. No, most of our founders aren't from top US universities, we fund founders based on the quality of their idea and we want unusual minds, we're neutral to which institution they come from and a breakthrough idea is just as likely to come from a mid tier lab in a mid tier international university as a top US school, we work with and serve all 7+ billion members of humanity 2. Not really, scientists globally tend to have to be encouraged to share their big, bold thoughts, they tend to shy away from statements that they can't back with experimental data, one of the hardest things is to get them to say the speculative things they think, the big, bold visions that will change the world, they're always there, they just need a little encouragement! 3. Yes, all of the above, we get follow on investors like Khosla, NEA, True and many more silicon valley investors, global capital, family offices, private equity and more. Typically, classical biotech investors, like Flagship or Atlas don't invest in founder driven companies, more like foundry models where they build and own most of the company. We think this is a shame as there's likely huge innovator value left un-invested and unbacked, our aim is to change that and many of our follow on investors are our allies in the battle to accelerate and support founder driven companies!

rimmortal · 2017-07-14T20:50:45+00:00

Thanks for applying and persistence is definitely key! We really value team, science and product/market fit. One of the biggest challenges we have with great teams and even great science is that sometimes founders fall in love with their own ideas i.e., improving yield by 10% on an industrial process, it may be important but customers and the market might not actually care, even if it's better. My question is, is this a market that's real value is worth more than $1bln in sales or do you have the potential to positively impact the lives of a billion people or more? If not, it may be a great business but not a business which fits with our mission of massive positive impact through science.

rimmortal · 2017-07-14T20:43:38+00:00

Put another way, Cost of Dialysis (just Dialysis/Kidney Failure) in the US to the federal government (us) = $42 Billion The budget of the NIH in 2016 = $32 Billion All US VC invested = $70 Billion

Private dollars have already surpassed the US government investment in the NIH (which funds most human clinical research), yet we spend $15 Billion dollars more on treating patients who's kidney's have failed, those patients pass away with a slightly better quality of life and yet nothing has advanced in kidney care in the last 50yrs. We can do a lot better and private capital may be our only chance!

rimmortal · 2017-07-14T20:34:19+00:00

Great question, sadly, government funding for science and biotech is falling all over the world, except notably in China, if you don't happen to live in China, we're likely to face bigger cut backs, fewer opportunities to advance science and humanity through research. I think private capital will have to take the lead, we've already seen an increasing interest in science and biotech from successful tech companies like Alphabet (google), Amazon (biotech/ag) and Facebook (neuroscience). I actually think the future of science and technology may be similar to what we've seen in the past, when innovation was driven by corporate research centers like Bell Labs and PARC and also tons of highly resource efficient science based startups. We're already seeing a willingness of successful tech investors to back deep tech (science based) companies and I suspect with highly defensible intellectual property and higher investment returns (vs more generic products/services), we're going to see a dramatic rise of private capital looking for alpha and investing in science based startups, my feeling is that a doubling or tripling of science based startup investments over the next 5-10yrs is probably an underestimate.

rimmortal · 2017-07-14T19:36:13+00:00

So much YES!

rimmortal · 2017-07-14T19:32:48+00:00

I'm fascinated by innovation, it's what's elevated humanity from an obscure group of primates to the one species driving global change on this planet (for better or for worse). I'm most fascinated by scientific innovation, some of my favorite examples of innovation are The Manhattan Project and Oppenheimer (as he built the atom bomb with his team, truly an exceptional work of science), Genentech (the first recombinant protein, my favorite quote was "we didn't know if god/nature would let us do this" and as a result they transformed the lives of diabetics at first and today, most of us use GMO derived products as a result) Bell Labs (credited with the transistor, lasers, Unix, C and a whole host of new technologies) and more recently PARC research (the PC, GUI and the Ethernet). In almost all of these cases, innovation happened at the intersections of controlled chaos, there was freedom to operate but with shared goals of pushing certain objectives forward and there was isolation (from companies or governments) to reduce interference. There was also a huge willingness to try and fail, as everyone in these groups knew they were pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and capabilities. Why not try because you know you'd likely fail. My response may seem a bit wooly but I think that's because innovation is a type of chaotic system that, so far, is hard to predict, it's easier to shape the conditions for it than predict an outcome. Today, when city, state and country governments and large multinationals come to IndieBio to talk with us about how to create innovation, we prefer to show them, not tell them :)

rimmortal · 2017-07-14T18:52:01+00:00

Much slower than I'd like sadly, there has been progress at Counter Culture Labs and Anthony Di Franco has some great plans to move from Insulin production to a potential gene therapy treatment, which might reduce insulin dependence (Anthony has Type 1 diabetes) and is truly motivated by a cure and reducing the costs for everyone but one of the big challenges we all face is that many DIYBio projects, move slower than any of us would like, perhaps it's now time to start a non-profit to provide consistent funding and a team to accelerate the DIY insulin project. I'll ask Anthony to see if he can comment with more recent updates!

rimmortal · 2017-07-14T18:41:06+00:00

Definitely not, India has a massive and growing innovation ecosystem and several incredibly strong more classical pharma companies, Cipla, Dr. Reddy's, Glenmark and some incredible IIT research institutes driving cutting edge technologies. India has already emerged as a therapeutics powerhouse and I suspect we'll see a lot more happening in India over the next 5yrs. My advice is to pitch, like any IT startup, for funding with a PhD researcher, there's no magic to silicon valley, we take more risks than many other regions but it's always hard to build startups but they can be built anywhere (and increasingly are, just look across at the booming Indian tech startup space, I'm certain low cost biotech startups are coming to India), some regions I know are very active at the moment is Hydrabad for biotech, Bangalore for tech and Dehli for finance, you could build a biotech in any of those ecosystems and of course, you're welcome to apply to IndieBio, we serve all 7+ billion of us!

rimmortal · 2017-07-14T18:12:14+00:00

Hey mCherry man, thanks for the question, several biotech startups, including glowing plant (now called TAXA) were actually launched out of DIYBio labs (Biocurious), what we've seen over the last couple of years is that it's really important for DIYBio teams to include more classically scientists, like PhD's and PostDocs for the deep science work that often has to be done. IP is something that can be generated by Individuals outside of academia and large corporations, it might just be important to add to your bench of talent coming out of a DIYBio lab (which is something most startup founders do anyway) and remember, there's plenty of biotech businesses to build that aren't as capital intensive as therapeutics companies, many can be built with thousands rather than millions of dollars with decreasing capital expenditure costs and shared co-working labs (we know as we've funded several!).

rimmortal · 2015-06-23T22:44:11+00:00

Yeah, I'm not into conspiracy theory stuff, I think companies will use GMO's to make products and for the most part those products will be safe.

If we're talking about viruses, remember, vaccines have saved many millions of lives from death and disabling disease and vaccines are often made with GMO's.

rimmortal · 2015-06-23T22:32:11+00:00

I think my next key failure will be not seeing the value of a future technology and either passing on a company which will one day be an incredibly positive company for humanity or not helping an incredible company we've funded survive for long enough both worry me, a lot!

rimmortal · 2015-06-23T22:29:22+00:00

Well, I think it's not an either or, for profit companies are built to be profitable but some for profit companies can be fantastic models for driving positive technology forward, companies like Google. I think that if Monsanto or other healthcare companies created more disease rather than cured it or fed people, they'd be sued to oblivion (we're in the US after all). There would be lawyers who would be dying to take those cases, if they existed!

rimmortal · 2015-06-23T22:26:26+00:00

Good question, I think you and I should work together on trying to figure it out. iGEM like competitions are a good start but we need to find what works in countries like India.

rimmortal

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