Ferment builds companies.
Ferment works with visionary founders to incubate, fund and launch new companies that rapidly translate biology into products that solve problems across sectors including energy, agriculture, materials, and consumer health.
Allonnia is extracting value where others see waste.
The ability of microbes to breakdown substances is remarkable. Allonnia uses biological starting points and joins them with advanced remediation systems in order to clean up waste and pollution. We develop novel microbial and enzymatic solutions that target hard-to-treat contaminants in water, soil, and solid waste to enable a world where nothing is wasted. Because waste is a failure of the imagination. Read more about Allonnia’s mission here.
Motif makes food ingredients from fermentation.
This helps the transition to better plant based and animal free foods. Motif creates nutritious, sustainable, and delicious ingredients, which broadens food options for mainstream consumers. If you wonder what the ingredient tool kit for the next generation of food developers will be like, follow Motif’s work.
Ginkgo Bioworks is the organism company.
Ginkgo taps into earth’s most sophisticated manufacturing technology: biology. Ginkgo has built an automated and highly efficient platform for constructing, editing, and redesigning the living world. Our genetically programmed cells make compounds useful to many industries, from fragrance and flavor, to food, nutrition, chemicals, materials, medicines and more. Ginkgo is 500+ people, 200+ robots, based in Boston. Follow Ginkgo under the stock ticker DNA.
Bioscentric
Biology enabled innovation has resulted in a next generation of ingredients and products that offer better functionality, more sustainable footprint, and true benefit for consumers. This has been made possible by recent advances in the reading and writing of DNA and reduced costs of working with biology. Bioscentric specializes in leveraging these developments for the benefit of clients in consumer products and ingredients. We focus on developing novel strategies, sensory experiences, and engaging stories for companies using what we call “applied biology”.
Octant
Octant holds out the promise for better understanding how to design scents, medicines, or any molecule that interacts with the human body. Octant is mapping the interactions between human biology and chemicals by using genome engineering, next-generation DNA sequencing, and computation to measure the activity of thousands of receptor pathways in human cells, including those governing smell and taste. Read a paper by Sri Kosuri and Eric Jones’ (CEO and chief scientist at Octant, respectively) here. And read a blog post on their work here. And the major contribution they made to Covid-19 testing efforts here.
Givaudan
I had my dream job at a Swiss flavor & fragrance company called Givaudan. My colleagues were perfumers and flavorists. We made scents and tastes for products that billions of people have encoded into their most intimate memories. Our customers ranged from global consumer brands to niche products. From designer fragrances to toothpaste, from sweetness replacers in soft drinks to the shimmering green citrus notes in fresh orange juice, I guarantee you’ve experienced Givaudan’s work—and probably multiple times before you leave the house in the morning. In the fragrance and flavor industry, the people are passionate, highly trained, and trustful of the intelligence of their senses.