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CleanTechies
#200 Biofuels, Nature as a Blueprint, Bio-Mining, the Next Frontier, Waste to Fuel, & More w/ Moji Karimi (Cemvita)
Forget Fan Mail, Fan Text Us! 💬
Woo Hoo! Episode #200 🎉🎉🎉
We are thrilled to release our 200th episode with the one and only Moji Karimi. Moji is a co-founder of Cemvita, the biotech powerhouse that has also birthed GoldH2 and Endolith (now individual companies).
This is the free version of the episode. To get the full thing, go to our Substack and become a paid subscriber. Any paid tier gets full access to the episode.
Today, Moji shares with us,
- His journey into entrepreneurship and Cemvita
- What in the world they do and what they've done so far
- The basics of the biotech space
- Then we talk a lot about the future of biotech -- specifically, how we will start taking nature's lead in engineering industrial production
- We even discussed what a Trump administration could look like for the climate sector
It's a wonderful conversation full of value. Enjoy!
TOPICS:
**02:22 Dinner with George Mitchell
**05:39 Personal Journey & Origin of Cemvita
**08:05 Sustainable Oil Production
**13:01 Understanding Biotech & Synthetic Biology
**15:46 Success in Biotech & Tips for Fundraising
**19:44 End of Free Episode
--In the full episode--
**Considerations if Trump gets in
**Disruption in Fundraising | Focus on Cost
**What is a Durable Biotech Biz Model
**Using Waste as a Feedstock
**Redesigning Biotech Processes
**Approaching Different Investors
**Future Applications of Biotech
**Finding the Right Cos and Investors
LINKS:
**Connect with Moji | Follow Cemvita
**Connect with Somil on LinkedIn | Connect with Silas on LinkedIn
**Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn
**@Silas & @Somil_Agg on X
This podcast is NOT investment advice. Do your homework and due diligence before investing in anything discussed on this podcast.
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Reach out to Goodwin Law today; the law firm of choice for hundreds of ClimateTech Entrepreneurs worldwide. They have you covered from funding docs to offtake contracts to IPO and M&A support. GoodwinLaw.com (and tell them CleanTechies sent you!)
Moji Karimi (00:00:00):
Mining also has an impact on nature, so does using agricultural drive type biomass to produce products.
Moji Karimi (00:00:06):
Industry biotech is a tool to approach energy transition.
Moji Karimi (00:00:09):
It could really have a big, huge impact.
Moji Karimi (00:00:11):
There are a lot of people that are already working on the traditional use cases of biotech.
Moji Karimi (00:00:16):
For us, the vision was like, who is going to translate the learnings for our industry for this issue?
Somil Aggarwal (00:00:21):
Welcome back to Clean Techies, the number one podcast for climate tech entrepreneurs.
Silas Mähner (00:00:25):
I'm Somil.
Silas Mähner (00:00:26):
And I'm Silas.
Silas Mähner (00:00:27):
Each week,
Silas Mähner (00:00:28):
we publish the secrets to success from investors,
Silas Mähner (00:00:30):
founders,
Silas Mähner (00:00:31):
operators,
Silas Mähner (00:00:31):
and experts in climate tech around the world.
Silas Mähner (00:00:34):
Building a startup is hard.
Silas Mähner (00:00:35):
Building a climate tech startup is even harder.
Silas Mähner (00:00:37):
but we make it a little bit easier.
Somil Aggarwal (00:00:39):
We put a lot of effort into these shows, so we hope you enjoy.
Somil Aggarwal (00:00:42):
Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and let us know who you think we should have on next.
Silas Mähner (00:00:47):
With that, let's get into today's episode.
Silas Mähner (00:00:54):
If you're hearing this now, it's because you are a paid subscriber to Clean Techies.
Silas Mähner (00:00:58):
Thank you so much for supporting our mission.
Silas Mähner (00:01:01):
Enjoy this ad-free listening experience.
Silas Mähner (00:01:04):
Today,
Silas Mähner (00:01:05):
we have the privilege of speaking with Moji Karimi,
Silas Mähner (00:01:08):
co-founder of Simvita,
Silas Mähner (00:01:10):
a climate tech company using biotech to make industry more sustainable.
Silas Mähner (00:01:14):
Simvita was originally a platform working on various use cases for industrial biotech,
Silas Mähner (00:01:19):
and then in 2023,
Silas Mähner (00:01:21):
they spun out Endolith and Gold H2 into separate companies,
Silas Mähner (00:01:25):
and now...
Silas Mähner (00:01:26):
Samvita is solely focused on turning waste carbons into oils.
Silas Mähner (00:01:30):
This bio-oil can be used in various things, including sustainable aviation fuel.
Silas Mähner (00:01:35):
Moji calls himself a futurist,
Silas Mähner (00:01:37):
and it's clear that he is,
Silas Mähner (00:01:38):
but he's not just talking about the future,
Silas Mähner (00:01:40):
he's actually building it with Samvita.
Silas Mähner (00:01:42):
In this episode, we start off with the fundamentals of Moji,
Silas Mähner (00:01:45):
who he is, his journey, how Semvita started, and where they are today.
Silas Mähner (00:01:49):
Then we cover some macro topics,
Silas Mähner (00:01:51):
the biotech landscape and where it's headed,
Silas Mähner (00:01:53):
what a Trump administration could mean for Semvita and the climatic industry broadly,
Silas Mähner (00:01:57):
his advice on funding and how he approaches fundraising,
Silas Mähner (00:02:01):
three ideas for biotech startups.
Silas Mähner (00:02:03):
By the way, some of those are mind blowing.
Silas Mähner (00:02:04):
And then we wrap up with a few rapid fire questions and quick shout out to our
Silas Mähner (00:02:08):
friends at Goodwin Law for sponsoring Clean Techies.
Silas Mähner (00:02:11):
Enjoy the episode.
Silas Mähner (00:02:12):
All right.
Silas Mähner (00:02:13):
Welcome to the show, Emoji.
Silas Mähner (00:02:14):
How are you doing today?
Moji Karimi (00:02:15):
Very good.
Moji Karimi (00:02:16):
Thanks for having me.
Moji Karimi (00:02:17):
Appreciate it.
Silas Mähner (00:02:18):
Absolutely.
Silas Mähner (00:02:18):
The pleasure is all ours.
Silas Mähner (00:02:20):
So to start us off,
Silas Mähner (00:02:21):
you know,
Silas Mähner (00:02:22):
if you could have dinner with any clean techie or climate tech OG,
Silas Mähner (00:02:25):
who would it be and why?
Moji Karimi (00:02:27):
A few people come to mind.
Moji Karimi (00:02:28):
If I could choose dead or alive, probably I would choose George Mitchell.
Moji Karimi (00:02:34):
And this is grandfather of hydraulic fracturing that we're talking about.
Moji Karimi (00:02:38):
So for some people, they may think like, why?
Moji Karimi (00:02:43):
He's like the opposite of clean tech.
Moji Karimi (00:02:45):
but if you read about his life actually he had deep passion for sustainability off
Moji Karimi (00:02:51):
of which he launched a bunch of initiatives one of those is the city of woodlands
Moji Karimi (00:02:57):
uh he's actually inspired by him he wanted humans to integrate with nature and
Moji Karimi (00:03:03):
that's why it's called woodlands and that's why it looks the way it does as well as
Moji Karimi (00:03:08):
a research center for environmental research
Moji Karimi (00:03:11):
So I'm just very curious to see what was going on in his mind in terms of his
Moji Karimi (00:03:16):
holistic view of human's relationship with nature,
Moji Karimi (00:03:20):
both for resource extraction,
Moji Karimi (00:03:21):
as well as this harmony that he was trying to create,
Moji Karimi (00:03:25):
uh,
Moji Karimi (00:03:25):
that,
Moji Karimi (00:03:25):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:03:26):
manifests in places like woodlands,
Moji Karimi (00:03:28):
you know?
Moji Karimi (00:03:29):
So I think that would call for a fun conversation, you know, if I had the opportunity.
Silas Mähner (00:03:35):
Fair play.
Silas Mähner (00:03:36):
I think, uh, I think we're going to have to do some research into this, into this fellow.
Silas Mähner (00:03:39):
Tell us, I guess, a little bit about your personal journey into the space in general.
Silas Mähner (00:03:44):
How did you end up here today?
Moji Karimi (00:03:45):
Yeah, I started off in oil and gas.
Moji Karimi (00:03:47):
Part of that was because I grew up in Iran, where the oil industry is, of course, a big power play.
Moji Karimi (00:03:53):
I remember just growing up listening to the ministry of petroleum, and that was just fascinating to me.
Moji Karimi (00:03:59):
So when the time came to pick a major for college, I chose petroleum engineering.
Moji Karimi (00:04:05):
And I chose drilling because I talked to one of our neighbors who was in the
Moji Karimi (00:04:09):
industry because at the time I didn't know drilling versus production versus reservoir,
Moji Karimi (00:04:14):
for example.
Moji Karimi (00:04:15):
Back home,
Moji Karimi (00:04:16):
you have to actually choose for bachelor's,
Moji Karimi (00:04:19):
like right off the bat,
Moji Karimi (00:04:20):
if you want to go production,
Moji Karimi (00:04:21):
reservoir,
Moji Karimi (00:04:21):
drilling,
Moji Karimi (00:04:22):
and exploration.
Moji Karimi (00:04:23):
So he told me if you're more like a behind the desk kind of guy, choose reservoir.
Moji Karimi (00:04:29):
If you want to be out there,
Moji Karimi (00:04:31):
you know, like more kind of tangible, physical things to, uh, drilling.
Moji Karimi (00:04:35):
So I chose drilling,
Moji Karimi (00:04:36):
but then,
Moji Karimi (00:04:37):
uh,
Moji Karimi (00:04:37):
I came to us for masters and,
Moji Karimi (00:04:40):
um,
Moji Karimi (00:04:41):
ended up getting a job in Houston,
Moji Karimi (00:04:43):
like many of us,
Moji Karimi (00:04:44):
uh,
Moji Karimi (00:04:45):
working in oil and gas,
Moji Karimi (00:04:47):
uh,
Moji Karimi (00:04:47):
a few years into it,
Moji Karimi (00:04:48):
I realized,
Moji Karimi (00:04:49):
uh,
Moji Karimi (00:04:50):
the big company thing wasn't really for me.
Moji Karimi (00:04:52):
I wanted more like fast space, more.
Moji Karimi (00:04:55):
riskier, aggressive moves, and that started this pathway to entrepreneurship.
Moji Karimi (00:05:01):
Tried one thing, then another, and then that led to Sembita.
Moji Karimi (00:05:04):
So as we talk,
Moji Karimi (00:05:06):
happy to give you more context for those other things because,
Moji Karimi (00:05:10):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:05:10):
that kind of paved the way for what I'm doing today at Sembita.
Moji Karimi (00:05:14):
But started off with oil and gas background and then got into this
Moji Karimi (00:05:18):
multidisciplinary sciences and was fortunate to
Moji Karimi (00:05:22):
find this connection with my co-founder Tara on the synthetic biology side,
Moji Karimi (00:05:25):
which became the initial idea for Semvita.
Silas Mähner (00:05:29):
Tell us more about the origin of Semvita.
Moji Karimi (00:05:32):
Yeah,
Moji Karimi (00:05:32):
so when I left Weatherford,
Moji Karimi (00:05:35):
it was to join a startup company where they wanted to commercialize DNA sequencing
Moji Karimi (00:05:40):
in the subsurface,
Moji Karimi (00:05:42):
looking at DNA of microbes in the oil,
Moji Karimi (00:05:44):
water,
Moji Karimi (00:05:44):
rock,
Moji Karimi (00:05:45):
and building this kind of a 23andMe top maps for the subsurface.
Moji Karimi (00:05:49):
I joined them because I thought that was super fascinating.
Moji Karimi (00:05:52):
I just love to learn about biotech given the opportunity.
Moji Karimi (00:05:57):
And also they needed someone who could take this technology that is de-risked and
Moji Karimi (00:06:06):
available in other industries and translate it for oil and gas.
Moji Karimi (00:06:11):
And I just love that.
Moji Karimi (00:06:12):
So I joined them as their first oil and gas hire, first PD manager.
Moji Karimi (00:06:18):
I was employee number four.
Moji Karimi (00:06:19):
I started the Houston office.
Moji Karimi (00:06:21):
Through that,
Moji Karimi (00:06:22):
I learned about biotech because the company was backed by Illumina,
Moji Karimi (00:06:26):
the really big DNA sequencing company out of San Diego.
Moji Karimi (00:06:30):
Illumina is the reason that DNA sequencing is cheap,
Moji Karimi (00:06:32):
basically,
Moji Karimi (00:06:33):
because they build these high throughput machines.
Moji Karimi (00:06:35):
So the time that I spent there, I was just getting more interested in biotech.
Moji Karimi (00:06:41):
Around the same time, Tara, my co-founder,
Moji Karimi (00:06:44):
It moved to Houston.
Moji Karimi (00:06:45):
She was doing a tissue engineering project with MD Anderson.
Moji Karimi (00:06:48):
So when I mentioned this is what I'm doing,
Moji Karimi (00:06:51):
she's like,
Moji Karimi (00:06:51):
well,
Moji Karimi (00:06:52):
I could tell you more about DNA sequencing because this is what I do.
Moji Karimi (00:06:55):
Just through organic conversations, dinners, weekends, I learned more about her world of biotech.
Moji Karimi (00:07:01):
And I also shared with her, like, why are we doing this?
Moji Karimi (00:07:05):
And what are the challenges that the industry is facing?
Moji Karimi (00:07:10):
Collectively, we decided, I know a bit about commercialization.
Moji Karimi (00:07:14):
You're a very highly respected scientist with a lot of ideas.
Moji Karimi (00:07:21):
We've learned that DNA sequencing is a tool, but the tool set is synthetic biology and bioengineering.
Moji Karimi (00:07:27):
Why not team up and pick that as the idea to bring synthetic biology to heavy industries?
Moji Karimi (00:07:35):
That's what we did.
Moji Karimi (00:07:36):
We teamed up.
Moji Karimi (00:07:38):
Tara left the job initially, moved into our guest house.
Moji Karimi (00:07:40):
We bootstrapped for over a year to fine tune what that first idea is, which became CO2 utilization.
Moji Karimi (00:07:48):
And we launched.
Moji Karimi (00:07:50):
And later I left also my job, joined her.
Moji Karimi (00:07:53):
And, you know, that was seven years ago.
Silas Mähner (00:07:55):
And so what does Semvita do today specifically?
Silas Mähner (00:07:58):
Because I know you guys have had a little bit of a history of building some very
Silas Mähner (00:08:01):
interesting things and spitting things out.
Moji Karimi (00:08:02):
Yeah.
Moji Karimi (00:08:03):
So we started off as a platform,
Moji Karimi (00:08:05):
but then we zoomed into this one key application,
Moji Karimi (00:08:09):
which is using carbon waste for by manufacturing of sustainable oil.
Moji Karimi (00:08:15):
So we produce it's an oil.
Moji Karimi (00:08:20):
very similar to palm oil,
Moji Karimi (00:08:21):
vegetable oil,
Moji Karimi (00:08:23):
that is a drop-in for a lot of processes and products,
Moji Karimi (00:08:28):
including sustainable aviation fuel through the HEPA process.
Moji Karimi (00:08:32):
So that's where the United Partnership comes in, as well as some other initiatives that we're doing.
Moji Karimi (00:08:38):
So yeah,
Moji Karimi (00:08:39):
right now,
Moji Karimi (00:08:40):
everything is focused on using carbon waste,
Moji Karimi (00:08:42):
including CO2,
Moji Karimi (00:08:43):
for biomanufacturing of sustainable oil.
Silas Mähner (00:08:46):
And I guess, what is the
Silas Mähner (00:08:49):
big vision that you have for impact you'll make?
Moji Karimi (00:08:53):
The big vision is basically nature X industry,
Moji Karimi (00:08:56):
like nature meets industry in thinking that these two,
Moji Karimi (00:09:00):
now that you have these tools from biotech,
Moji Karimi (00:09:02):
these two,
Moji Karimi (00:09:02):
they should not be viewed as this very kind of separate things that nature is,
Moji Karimi (00:09:07):
it is what it is.
Moji Karimi (00:09:08):
And humans are creating industry.
Moji Karimi (00:09:09):
We could actually learn from nature.
Moji Karimi (00:09:11):
We could integrate with nature in the way that we exchange processes in the way
Moji Karimi (00:09:16):
that we extract feedstocks.
Moji Karimi (00:09:18):
in the way that we use waste streams.
Moji Karimi (00:09:21):
It could all be integrated and biotech is the vehicle to do that.
Moji Karimi (00:09:26):
So as we get into kind of how Semida does what we do, those are all examples of that vision.
Moji Karimi (00:09:34):
Like when you think about biomanufacturing,
Moji Karimi (00:09:37):
That's what the soy plant is doing, for example, right?
Moji Karimi (00:09:40):
It's growing, and then we crush it to get the oil out.
Moji Karimi (00:09:44):
And now we're saying,
Moji Karimi (00:09:45):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:09:45):
well,
Moji Karimi (00:09:46):
can we do that in a biorefinery so that it could be more efficient,
Moji Karimi (00:09:49):
so that it would use less water,
Moji Karimi (00:09:52):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:09:52):
so that we could do it in a lower carbon way?
Moji Karimi (00:09:55):
But the principle of it is learning from nature.
Moji Karimi (00:09:58):
Same with gold hydrogen.
Moji Karimi (00:09:59):
Can we turn the reservoir into a biorefinery, you know, in the mining?
Moji Karimi (00:10:03):
Can we turn the heat bleach into a bioreactor?
Moji Karimi (00:10:07):
So learning from a lot of these natural processes in our case that are enabled by
Moji Karimi (00:10:12):
natural microorganisms in nature,
Moji Karimi (00:10:15):
but understanding them,
Moji Karimi (00:10:17):
engineering them,
Moji Karimi (00:10:18):
and then scaling them up so that they could recreate what we're calling basically
Moji Karimi (00:10:23):
it's a natural resource industry of the future that's enabled by biotech.
Moji Karimi (00:10:28):
And let me tell you, we're just scratching the surface.
Moji Karimi (00:10:30):
Like we don't even know anything when it comes to synthetic biology.
Moji Karimi (00:10:34):
This is one of those areas where
Moji Karimi (00:10:36):
Us humans, we're just maybe 2% of the way in.
Moji Karimi (00:10:40):
And the fun part about it is we all have such a personal experience with it,
Moji Karimi (00:10:44):
but we just don't think about it that way.
Moji Karimi (00:10:46):
So like we as humans,
Moji Karimi (00:10:49):
each person is basically the most complicated,
Moji Karimi (00:10:53):
the most advanced technology,
Moji Karimi (00:10:55):
each person,
Moji Karimi (00:10:55):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:10:56):
Because it's an autonomous system.
Moji Karimi (00:10:57):
It's a biological system.
Moji Karimi (00:10:59):
You eat things, you produce energy, you have waste streams, like all of it, right?
Moji Karimi (00:11:04):
And it's just so complex.
Moji Karimi (00:11:06):
So that's like, you know, three, four billion years of technology ahead of us.
Moji Karimi (00:11:11):
And microbes are a very small starting point to kind of understand those pathways,
Moji Karimi (00:11:18):
metabolic,
Moji Karimi (00:11:19):
genetic inside the microbe and see,
Moji Karimi (00:11:21):
OK,
Moji Karimi (00:11:22):
is this is this a time where we could apply the tools like,
Moji Karimi (00:11:25):
say,
Moji Karimi (00:11:26):
DNA sequencing or CRISPR fermentation?
Moji Karimi (00:11:30):
to start to integrate and see how can we work with microbes as part of our growth as humans, right?
Moji Karimi (00:11:37):
The same way that we've done with plants through agriculture,
Moji Karimi (00:11:41):
the same way that we've done with animals through farming and created all these
Moji Karimi (00:11:45):
massive industries that has led to humans thriving.
Moji Karimi (00:11:50):
I see microbes as basically this next frontier.
Moji Karimi (00:11:53):
where there's a lot of opportunities to explore beyond what we've done today with
Moji Karimi (00:11:58):
use cases,
Moji Karimi (00:11:58):
say with E.
Moji Karimi (00:11:59):
coli and yeast.
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:00):
You have me bought in.
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:01):
I'm hyped for this vision.
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:03):
I see it.
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:06):
You've thrown around the word biotech and,
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:09):
you know,
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:10):
most people who are listening,
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:11):
we don't have PhDs in biochemistry,
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:13):
biotechnology,
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:14):
although I'm sure after listening to you,
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:16):
we wish we did.
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:17):
But generally speaking, when you say biotech, what is that?
Somil Aggarwal (00:12:20):
How are you working with, you know, biological technologies?
Moji Karimi (00:12:24):
Yeah, I mean, biotech is very broad in our case.
Moji Karimi (00:12:28):
And by the way, these are all the things I come from, like petroleum engineering.
Moji Karimi (00:12:33):
Right.
Moji Karimi (00:12:33):
So these are the things I learned from Tara.
Moji Karimi (00:12:35):
early on, just like reading and then working with our team, which are very multidisciplinary, right?
Moji Karimi (00:12:42):
But the parts of it that are more relevant,
Moji Karimi (00:12:44):
maybe I'll mention is you have microbiology,
Moji Karimi (00:12:48):
which is basically just learning about microbes,
Moji Karimi (00:12:51):
knowing how to isolate microbes,
Moji Karimi (00:12:54):
how to grow microbes,
Moji Karimi (00:12:56):
culture microbes,
Moji Karimi (00:12:57):
basically.
Moji Karimi (00:12:58):
And then you have molecular biology, which is the actual genetic engineering, like inside the microbe.
Moji Karimi (00:13:05):
What changes can you make to drive different outcomes?
Moji Karimi (00:13:09):
Because if you think about a microbe,
Moji Karimi (00:13:12):
inside a microbe is like a very complicated,
Moji Karimi (00:13:15):
say,
Moji Karimi (00:13:15):
petrochemical plant or a chemical plant refinery.
Moji Karimi (00:13:18):
There's a lot of genetic pathways for how they consume, say, sugar.
Moji Karimi (00:13:23):
and turn it into different products.
Moji Karimi (00:13:25):
If you take yeast from breweries, you give them sugar, they make alcohol, right?
Moji Karimi (00:13:32):
So it turns out you could also define other things that they could receive.
Moji Karimi (00:13:37):
And then through the genetic pathways, you could get them to produce other products as well.
Moji Karimi (00:13:41):
And so that tool set of genetic engineering,
Moji Karimi (00:13:45):
when I say biotech and synthetic biology,
Moji Karimi (00:13:48):
our application is focused on
Moji Karimi (00:13:50):
working with microbes.
Moji Karimi (00:13:52):
Of course,
Moji Karimi (00:13:52):
biotech also applies to plants,
Moji Karimi (00:13:54):
applies to humans,
Moji Karimi (00:13:55):
to cancer research,
Moji Karimi (00:13:56):
medicine,
Moji Karimi (00:13:56):
everything else,
Moji Karimi (00:13:57):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:13:58):
But our part,
Moji Karimi (00:13:59):
that's why we sometimes say industry or biotech,
Moji Karimi (00:14:02):
to kind of bring the conversation focused on the industry use cases of biotech.
Moji Karimi (00:14:07):
In agriculture, there's been a scale already, wastewater treatment,
Moji Karimi (00:14:12):
biofuels, of course, breweries is another great example.
Moji Karimi (00:14:17):
And what we're exploring now is new use cases for energy transition.
Moji Karimi (00:14:21):
So if it's in mining,
Moji Karimi (00:14:23):
if it's for hydrogen,
Moji Karimi (00:14:24):
if it's in the subsurface,
Moji Karimi (00:14:25):
if it's for biomanufacturing of chemicals,
Moji Karimi (00:14:28):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:14:29):
fuels as well.
Moji Karimi (00:14:31):
But yeah, that's just generally kind of the biotech, industry biotech, synthetic biology
Moji Karimi (00:14:39):
In my filter, it all goes towards that industry biotech use case.
Somil Aggarwal (00:14:43):
You know,
Somil Aggarwal (00:14:43):
from an outsider's perspective,
Somil Aggarwal (00:14:45):
you've broken down biotech and where you sit in it,
Somil Aggarwal (00:14:48):
the importance of industrial biotech especially.
Somil Aggarwal (00:14:50):
But I'm really curious, what makes it a good thing to do, right?
Somil Aggarwal (00:14:54):
Is it the fact that you can invest a lot of money and that becomes your moat?
Somil Aggarwal (00:14:57):
What makes industrial biotech special?
Moji Karimi (00:15:00):
Well, part of it is just think about the problem we're facing, which is climate change, right?
Moji Karimi (00:15:04):
I think, you know,
Moji Karimi (00:15:07):
A lot of people would agree that is the biggest problem that's facing humanity.
Moji Karimi (00:15:13):
And so,
Moji Karimi (00:15:13):
industry biotech is a tool to approach energy transition in a way that it could
Moji Karimi (00:15:19):
really have a big,
Moji Karimi (00:15:20):
huge impact.
Moji Karimi (00:15:22):
On one hand, companies are looking for ways to reduce their emission.
Moji Karimi (00:15:26):
They're looking for ways to reduce their overall impact on nature.
Moji Karimi (00:15:30):
And industry biotech has solutions for both.
Moji Karimi (00:15:33):
As you could use carbon waste as a feedstock,
Moji Karimi (00:15:35):
you could create closed loop systems,
Moji Karimi (00:15:37):
circular systems,
Moji Karimi (00:15:40):
and you would reduce your overall impact on nature because you're doing less
Moji Karimi (00:15:45):
chemical reactions,
Moji Karimi (00:15:46):
less reactions that create waste in the process.
Moji Karimi (00:15:51):
There are a lot of people that are already working on the traditional use cases of biotech,
Moji Karimi (00:15:57):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:15:58):
whether it is cancer research,
Moji Karimi (00:16:00):
pharma,
Moji Karimi (00:16:01):
But for us,
Moji Karimi (00:16:02):
the vision was like,
Moji Karimi (00:16:03):
who is going to translate the learnings for our industry,
Moji Karimi (00:16:08):
for this issue?
Moji Karimi (00:16:10):
People who are sitting in Boston and New York,
Moji Karimi (00:16:12):
they may not know the intricacies of what energy transition is facing,
Moji Karimi (00:16:19):
the challenges,
Moji Karimi (00:16:20):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:16:21):
And people who are, say, in Houston, they don't know about biotech.
Moji Karimi (00:16:25):
So that's where we say, okay, this combination with me and Tara will create that opportunity.
Moji Karimi (00:16:30):
And the way that it could really show itself is by focusing on initial biotech as a category.
Moji Karimi (00:16:37):
Personally,
Moji Karimi (00:16:38):
I think sometimes people think,
Moji Karimi (00:16:40):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:16:40):
because some technology started somewhere,
Moji Karimi (00:16:44):
it's just kind of easy to think about that and envision an expanded version of that.
Moji Karimi (00:16:50):
But in reality, we should detach from the initial application and think beyond it.
Moji Karimi (00:16:55):
So I think, give you an example, think about one,
Moji Karimi (00:17:00):
Initially,
Moji Karimi (00:17:00):
when internet came out,
Moji Karimi (00:17:03):
no one would have imagined what this means,
Moji Karimi (00:17:06):
like how much more application it could have.
Moji Karimi (00:17:08):
Same with software.
Moji Karimi (00:17:10):
Same now with AI.
Moji Karimi (00:17:12):
Initially, this was more for data science type.
Moji Karimi (00:17:15):
It was the way we were thinking about it.
Moji Karimi (00:17:18):
But now it's used in everything.
Moji Karimi (00:17:20):
Every company is an AI company, is a software company.
Moji Karimi (00:17:23):
It's just part of what you do.
Moji Karimi (00:17:25):
Same with biotech.
Moji Karimi (00:17:26):
So any initial company,
Moji Karimi (00:17:28):
is going to have aspects of biotech that they're going to implement.
Moji Karimi (00:17:31):
If in any way they're dealing with nature,
Moji Karimi (00:17:34):
they're using feedstock,
Moji Karimi (00:17:35):
they're going to integrate that part of it into their work.
Moji Karimi (00:17:39):
And this is not something, you know, there's new reports published.
Moji Karimi (00:17:44):
Just this month, like four or five big reports were published, and they're all talking about
Moji Karimi (00:17:51):
If you're doing anything that has to do with materials,
Moji Karimi (00:17:53):
with energy,
Moji Karimi (00:17:53):
you should start thinking about in what ways biotech is going to impact your business.
Moji Karimi (00:17:59):
And so that it's not that, hey, if you Chevron, why are you hiring an AI specialist?
Moji Karimi (00:18:08):
That was a legit question to them a while back, right?
Moji Karimi (00:18:11):
It's like,
Moji Karimi (00:18:11):
well,
Moji Karimi (00:18:12):
of course,
Moji Karimi (00:18:12):
because this is integrated into what they do,
Moji Karimi (00:18:14):
it's going to be the same for biotech.
Moji Karimi (00:18:17):
Like if you're any of those companies,
Moji Karimi (00:18:19):
you're going to have to start building out those internal teams,
Moji Karimi (00:18:22):
but it takes the time.
Moji Karimi (00:18:23):
So that's why companies like Sunvita,
Moji Karimi (00:18:26):
the role that we play is like,
Moji Karimi (00:18:27):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:18:28):
think of us as that extended arm for now.
Moji Karimi (00:18:31):
And then as we de-risk the solutions, we scale them, then they start building out their capabilities.
Moji Karimi (00:18:35):
So that's this...
Moji Karimi (00:18:37):
synergy that exists with the startups and big companies.
Somil Aggarwal (00:18:41):
You've had a lot of success within the biotech space, right?
Somil Aggarwal (00:18:45):
Starting a company,
Somil Aggarwal (00:18:46):
finding product market fit,
Somil Aggarwal (00:18:47):
bringing in talent,
Somil Aggarwal (00:18:49):
bringing in fundraisers to the cap table,
Somil Aggarwal (00:18:50):
and now even spinning out a few different other concepts to your same technology.
Somil Aggarwal (00:18:54):
So speaking from that wealth of knowledge,
Somil Aggarwal (00:18:57):
I'm curious about how you think you succeed and will continue to succeed in biotech.
Somil Aggarwal (00:19:02):
Right from my outsider view looking in, it's a space likely with a lot of really smart people.
Somil Aggarwal (00:19:07):
And the trend or the common understanding is that with really smart people,
Somil Aggarwal (00:19:11):
you can get some really big egos.
Somil Aggarwal (00:19:13):
So I'm curious, as a fundraiser, as a community builder in this space, how have you succeeded in biotech?
Somil Aggarwal (00:19:18):
Could you share any tips or tricks with us?
Moji Karimi (00:19:20):
I think that,
Moji Karimi (00:19:21):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:19:21):
what I have experienced and the support that we've gotten,
Moji Karimi (00:19:25):
which we're grateful for,
Moji Karimi (00:19:27):
It's been because this is a real story.
Moji Karimi (00:19:29):
We're not opportunistic.
Moji Karimi (00:19:32):
Let's find an idea.
Moji Karimi (00:19:33):
Let's try to see if we could make some money or let's see how we could take
Moji Karimi (00:19:38):
something and just scale it and seeing it as a business opportunity or something.
Moji Karimi (00:19:45):
This is our life, basically.
Moji Karimi (00:19:47):
When people talk to me, talk to Tara, they could feel the passion that goes into this.
Moji Karimi (00:19:52):
They could feel
Moji Karimi (00:19:55):
that this is not just a job or a company.
Moji Karimi (00:19:59):
This is a mission for us.
Moji Karimi (00:20:02):
And then through that, we've been able to curate a team of other people who feel the same way.
Moji Karimi (00:20:08):
And these are some of the best scientists in the world that know so much about one specific microbe.
Moji Karimi (00:20:13):
And now they're finding this PhD that I did, now it's not just about this scientific research.
Moji Karimi (00:20:19):
This microbe could actually have a huge impact on climate change.
Moji Karimi (00:20:23):
And so that's really energizing, right?
Moji Karimi (00:20:25):
So when we talk to people,
Moji Karimi (00:20:27):
it's basically we're sharing these stories and how this has brought these two
Moji Karimi (00:20:31):
groups together from biotech and from the industry,
Moji Karimi (00:20:35):
the energy heavy industry.
Moji Karimi (00:20:37):
And what does this mean?
Moji Karimi (00:20:39):
Like the way it translates into this new cutting edge applications?
Moji Karimi (00:20:43):
So if it's investors, I mean, that's the whole point of it, right?
Moji Karimi (00:20:48):
They want to see what's next and what are those opportunities that I could invest
Moji Karimi (00:20:53):
in today that could actually be whole new categories of industries basically to
Moji Karimi (00:20:59):
participate in the upside.
Moji Karimi (00:21:01):
To that end, I mean, there's no way to fake that.
Moji Karimi (00:21:05):
You just have to do something that you're very passionate about and then spend time
Moji Karimi (00:21:10):
to really get good at the process.
Moji Karimi (00:21:12):
And so the past seven years for Sambita,
Moji Karimi (00:21:15):
part of my journey has been just day by day,
Moji Karimi (00:21:18):
just see,
Moji Karimi (00:21:19):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:21:19):
what needs to happen today to advance our mission for creating this natural
Moji Karimi (00:21:25):
resource industry of the future where nature and industry integrate.
Moji Karimi (00:21:30):
And then breaking it down to,
Moji Karimi (00:21:31):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:21:31):
well,
Moji Karimi (00:21:32):
the thing that we're advancing today is using carbon waste for biomanufacturing of
Moji Karimi (00:21:37):
sustainable oil.
Moji Karimi (00:21:38):
Then you break it down further into goals for the quarter, then goals for the different departments.
Moji Karimi (00:21:44):
This is how it connects together and motivates everyone that's involved,
Moji Karimi (00:21:48):
gives external parties the confidence that it's not just an idea.
Moji Karimi (00:21:52):
There's a roadmap and the right people in place.
Moji Karimi (00:21:55):
Same with when people join us,
Moji Karimi (00:21:57):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:21:57):
because a lot of what we do externally,
Moji Karimi (00:21:59):
our audience is primarily investors and talent who is looking to join us.
Moji Karimi (00:22:03):
For example, it's not for customers, actually, because we know who they are.
Moji Karimi (00:22:07):
They know who we are.
Moji Karimi (00:22:08):
It's a different kind of messaging.
Moji Karimi (00:22:09):
But yeah, so just the passion, I think, is the answer.
Silas Mähner (00:22:14):
Yeah.
Silas Mähner (00:22:14):
Recently,
Silas Mähner (00:22:15):
there's been a lot of kind of concern in the climate community broadly about a
Silas Mähner (00:22:19):
possible administration change in 2024 at the time of the election.
Silas Mähner (00:22:23):
So when you look ahead to November,
Silas Mähner (00:22:26):
if there is a potential Trump administration coming in,
Silas Mähner (00:22:29):
what are the key considerations that you have with some veto going forward?
Moji Karimi (00:22:34):
I mean, the main one is just disruption as far as fundraising.
Moji Karimi (00:22:40):
because sometimes investors,
Moji Karimi (00:22:42):
they want to kind of read the room and take a bit of time to see,
Moji Karimi (00:22:46):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:22:47):
what does this mean?
Moji Karimi (00:22:47):
And so for us,
Moji Karimi (00:22:50):
any kind of fundraising efforts,
Moji Karimi (00:22:52):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:22:53):
we plan so that we could close that out before that,
Moji Karimi (00:22:56):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:22:57):
But I think the bigger picture is what is going to happen with IRA,
Moji Karimi (00:23:01):
support for climate change initiatives,
Moji Karimi (00:23:03):
Paris Accords,
Moji Karimi (00:23:05):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:23:05):
all that stuff.
Moji Karimi (00:23:07):
And my answer is simple.
Moji Karimi (00:23:09):
Like,
Moji Karimi (00:23:09):
For a company to be able to achieve their sustainability mission,
Moji Karimi (00:23:14):
they first have to be sustainable themselves.
Moji Karimi (00:23:17):
And for a company to be sustainable, they have to not die.
Moji Karimi (00:23:21):
And for them not to not die,
Moji Karimi (00:23:22):
they have to have a valid business model that to a good amount protected from
Moji Karimi (00:23:29):
external factors.
Moji Karimi (00:23:31):
So how do you do that?
Moji Karimi (00:23:32):
You just have to focus on cost.
Moji Karimi (00:23:34):
Like if you could have line of sight to competing on cost,
Moji Karimi (00:23:37):
with the status quo, you're going to get support from both sides of the aisle.
Moji Karimi (00:23:42):
The sustainability at that point becomes more of a bonus and kind of an advantage.
Moji Karimi (00:23:47):
But if our sustainable oil could compete,
Moji Karimi (00:23:50):
which we are,
Moji Karimi (00:23:51):
with the price of,
Moji Karimi (00:23:52):
say,
Moji Karimi (00:23:53):
used cooking oil,
Moji Karimi (00:23:54):
soybean oil that's used today to make things like sustainable aviation fuel,
Moji Karimi (00:23:59):
then you're in business.
Moji Karimi (00:24:00):
It doesn't matter who is in office.
Moji Karimi (00:24:03):
But there are a lot of businesses in climate tech
Moji Karimi (00:24:07):
that the whole thing is about carbon markets.
Moji Karimi (00:24:10):
I mean, that's the whole business.
Moji Karimi (00:24:11):
You know,
Moji Karimi (00:24:11):
the whole business is around leveraging tax schemes,
Moji Karimi (00:24:16):
benefits,
Moji Karimi (00:24:17):
credits,
Moji Karimi (00:24:17):
premiums,
Moji Karimi (00:24:18):
things like that.
Moji Karimi (00:24:19):
We know about those things.
Moji Karimi (00:24:20):
We calculate the benefit of our solution,
Moji Karimi (00:24:23):
but we actually do not include them in our actual business model,
Moji Karimi (00:24:26):
in our actual financial model.
Moji Karimi (00:24:29):
And that's a way, you know, this is a theme for us in the way I think
Moji Karimi (00:24:35):
I just want us,
Moji Karimi (00:24:36):
and we talk about this all the time in our leadership meetings,
Moji Karimi (00:24:38):
like what can we control?
Moji Karimi (00:24:40):
There's a lot of things we don't control.
Moji Karimi (00:24:42):
So the more that you put eggs in those baskets, the more risk that you introduce, right?
Moji Karimi (00:24:47):
So just protecting the company from more external risks by focusing and double
Moji Karimi (00:24:53):
focusing on the things that we control.
Silas Mähner (00:24:56):
One thing I'm curious about is how within biotech do you determine,
Silas Mähner (00:25:01):
especially with what you guys are doing,
Silas Mähner (00:25:03):
If a business model has the right legs to be really durable, regardless of the administration.
Moji Karimi (00:25:08):
Yeah.
Moji Karimi (00:25:08):
So we have to start with the research, right.
Moji Karimi (00:25:11):
To see, okay, what are the advantages for the different kinds of solution providers in that space?
Moji Karimi (00:25:18):
And is this something that you think biotech is going to compete?
Moji Karimi (00:25:22):
Is this something that is already very crowded or not?
Moji Karimi (00:25:25):
Which another way of saying.
Moji Karimi (00:25:27):
that is what is the IP landscape?
Moji Karimi (00:25:29):
Because maybe unlike some of the other areas, this area is still very much, because it's new, right?
Moji Karimi (00:25:35):
CRISPR wasn't even here like 10 years ago.
Moji Karimi (00:25:40):
So we have to study that and then see,
Moji Karimi (00:25:42):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:25:42):
where is it that we could start something,
Moji Karimi (00:25:45):
we could scale it and run fast enough to create a mode.
Moji Karimi (00:25:49):
And so when we look at what solution to pursue, that's what I look for.
Moji Karimi (00:25:54):
At the same time, we also look for
Moji Karimi (00:25:56):
We have to validate the need.
Moji Karimi (00:25:58):
What that means is,
Moji Karimi (00:25:59):
for example,
Moji Karimi (00:25:59):
we're not going to go out of our way,
Moji Karimi (00:26:01):
spend our own money to develop a solution that we think the industry would need.
Moji Karimi (00:26:06):
We need to have a sponsor.
Moji Karimi (00:26:08):
Like someone say, I want this pathway and I'll pay you guys to develop this pathway.
Moji Karimi (00:26:12):
And that is,
Moji Karimi (00:26:13):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:26:13):
enough commitment to say,
Moji Karimi (00:26:15):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:26:15):
yeah,
Moji Karimi (00:26:16):
let's lean in there because obviously there's a need.
Moji Karimi (00:26:19):
This is also something you get a bit of a luxury to do once the company is a bit more mature.
Moji Karimi (00:26:24):
This early stage,
Moji Karimi (00:26:25):
you're trying to grab onto something basically to just stick and then kind of have
Moji Karimi (00:26:31):
escape velocity before you die,
Moji Karimi (00:26:32):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:26:33):
That kind of C to series A stage.
Moji Karimi (00:26:36):
But here it becomes more about go to market strategy.
Moji Karimi (00:26:40):
And then where is it that,
Moji Karimi (00:26:42):
yeah,
Moji Karimi (00:26:42):
we could really create like outsized returns,
Moji Karimi (00:26:46):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:26:46):
and looking for those applications.
Moji Karimi (00:26:48):
There are other applications also that we keep an eye on, but it may not make sense today.
Moji Karimi (00:26:55):
to get in, or the economics may not be there today, but there's a line of sight to get there.
Moji Karimi (00:27:02):
Say, microbial fuel cells is one of those, for example.
Moji Karimi (00:27:06):
So that is part of the job,
Moji Karimi (00:27:08):
is to constantly think about the possibilities,
Moji Karimi (00:27:11):
but also being really good at saying no to keep the team focused on actually doing
Moji Karimi (00:27:15):
the thing that we were commercializing.
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:18):
So on top of looking at the IP landscape, you know, how expensive is this to defend and to go to market?
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:23):
You said,
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:23):
especially some of the privilege that you have and the insight you have comes from
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:26):
scaling your technology.
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:28):
So as,
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:29):
you know,
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:29):
your journey as a biotech entrepreneur,
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:31):
you talked about controlling costs and that being,
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:34):
that's like a tentative entrepreneurship.
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:35):
It's popped up a lot in one of our favorite podcast founders about the greatest
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:39):
histories of the greatest companies.
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:41):
Controlling costs is always a common theme.
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:43):
So I'm curious from you in this day and age,
Somil Aggarwal (00:27:45):
how have you had to control your costs and what do you think worked for you?
Moji Karimi (00:27:48):
Yeah.
Moji Karimi (00:27:49):
Like you never hear someone said our differentiation is that we increase our costs.
Moji Karimi (00:27:54):
So I get that, but so we do have a specific ways through which we do it.
Moji Karimi (00:28:00):
One is using waste as a feeder stock.
Moji Karimi (00:28:03):
So the sustainability part of that is like,
Moji Karimi (00:28:07):
yes,
Moji Karimi (00:28:07):
if you use CO2,
Moji Karimi (00:28:08):
then you have a low carbon solution,
Moji Karimi (00:28:10):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:28:10):
But I like it because also it's lower cost,
Moji Karimi (00:28:13):
comparing to using something that you have to buy,
Moji Karimi (00:28:16):
like say sugar,
Moji Karimi (00:28:18):
that is expensive,
Moji Karimi (00:28:19):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:28:19):
So you use waste as a way of bringing the cost down.
Moji Karimi (00:28:23):
The other part is,
Moji Karimi (00:28:24):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:28:25):
I posted something on LinkedIn,
Moji Karimi (00:28:27):
which is started by saying,
Moji Karimi (00:28:28):
just forget everything you know about biotech,
Moji Karimi (00:28:30):
because there's perceptions like a steel tank,
Moji Karimi (00:28:32):
a sterilized environment,
Moji Karimi (00:28:34):
expensive is what comes to mind.
Moji Karimi (00:28:36):
We had to redesign that, you know, starting with, okay,
Moji Karimi (00:28:41):
If people are using E. coli yeast, they have to do those things.
Moji Karimi (00:28:45):
We're not doing that.
Moji Karimi (00:28:47):
So why do we have to just latch on to this existing baseline that exists?
Moji Karimi (00:28:52):
So we have to go back to first principles and see,
Moji Karimi (00:28:56):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:28:57):
what could go wrong if we don't use those things and go through those iterations?
Moji Karimi (00:29:01):
The point of that being to bring the cost down and also to be able to execute faster.
Moji Karimi (00:29:06):
So our bioreactors, for example, they're made out of plastic.
Moji Karimi (00:29:10):
And we found other ways to manage for contamination so we don't have to use steam
Moji Karimi (00:29:14):
to sterilize the tanks.
Moji Karimi (00:29:15):
That's what makes things expensive.
Moji Karimi (00:29:16):
You have to provide the energy and then it makes it more complicated to run.
Moji Karimi (00:29:22):
Same with our downstream process.
Moji Karimi (00:29:24):
We published a press release about this breakthrough that we had in being able to
Moji Karimi (00:29:29):
extract the oil from the microbes without using solvents.
Moji Karimi (00:29:34):
Usually the industry use hexane, use methanol as a way to extract oil.
Moji Karimi (00:29:39):
That's expensive to use those materials.
Moji Karimi (00:29:42):
So you eliminate that step.
Moji Karimi (00:29:44):
We found a different pathway, which was inspired actually by one of our team members who's from Turkey.
Moji Karimi (00:29:50):
And he said, in our village, we do olive oil.
Moji Karimi (00:29:54):
And this is how we do it.
Moji Karimi (00:29:56):
And one of those steps we tried, and it actually worked quite nicely combined with a few other steps.
Moji Karimi (00:30:04):
So we're able to eliminate, you know, the use of solvents.
Moji Karimi (00:30:08):
So you look for those things, right?
Moji Karimi (00:30:10):
You look for those things to bring the cost down.
Moji Karimi (00:30:12):
To be able to do it in a way,
Moji Karimi (00:30:15):
the way we think about industry biotech is more like,
Moji Karimi (00:30:19):
say,
Moji Karimi (00:30:19):
what a wastewater treatment will look like compared to what a super advanced like
Moji Karimi (00:30:25):
pharma facility would look like.
Moji Karimi (00:30:28):
We're not producing, you know, medicinal type drugs that are thousands of dollars per kilogram.
Moji Karimi (00:30:36):
We're producing something that is like five dollars a gallon.
Moji Karimi (00:30:40):
So how do you do that?
Moji Karimi (00:30:42):
Like, how can you really create this scale by being able to bring the cost down?
Moji Karimi (00:30:47):
You got to really have low capex.
Moji Karimi (00:30:49):
You have to have really low opex.
Moji Karimi (00:30:51):
And you have to really, the main part of what we've done is basically taken a lot of this.
Moji Karimi (00:30:56):
The reason those things exist is because the microbes are finicky and the microbes need all this care.
Moji Karimi (00:31:01):
We,
Moji Karimi (00:31:01):
our microbes,
Moji Karimi (00:31:02):
we engineer them to be robust so that the system doesn't have to,
Moji Karimi (00:31:06):
so that the bioreactor doesn't have to be fancy,
Moji Karimi (00:31:09):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:31:09):
You know, for example, if you create an environment inside the bioreactor that doesn't allow
Moji Karimi (00:31:16):
for contaminant type microbes to grow, then they won't grow.
Moji Karimi (00:31:19):
Then you don't need to have a still tanks to keep it sterilizing and worry about
Moji Karimi (00:31:23):
contamination that kills your culture and brings your productivity down,
Moji Karimi (00:31:26):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:31:27):
But those things are normal and accepted in a lot of the kind of a status quo industry.
Moji Karimi (00:31:32):
So,
Moji Karimi (00:31:32):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:31:32):
it's innovation,
Moji Karimi (00:31:33):
but innovation towards bringing the cost down so that we could advance our mission
Moji Karimi (00:31:38):
by being able to compete with the,
Moji Karimi (00:31:41):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:31:41):
what's out there,
Moji Karimi (00:31:42):
which is for us,
Moji Karimi (00:31:43):
you know,
Moji Karimi (00:31:43):
soybean oil,
Moji Karimi (00:31:44):
used cooking oil.
Silas Mähner (00:31:44):
Yeah,
Silas Mähner (00:31:44):
I think just to try to make sure I summarize this for myself,
Silas Mähner (00:31:48):
but also for the audiences,
Silas Mähner (00:31:49):
broadly speaking,
Silas Mähner (00:31:50):
you just make a much more durable process that doesn't necessarily require all of
Silas Mähner (00:31:55):
the circumstances around it,
Silas Mähner (00:31:56):
the environment it's done in to be really particular,
Silas Mähner (00:31:59):
because then you can actually bring it into industrial process.
Silas Mähner (00:32:02):
And if the industry is already used to everything being super sterile environment
Silas Mähner (00:32:06):
and all this high tech stuff,
Silas Mähner (00:32:08):
it takes a little bit of a paradigm shift for them to start thinking about it
Silas Mähner (00:32:11):
differently like you guys are.
Silas Mähner (00:32:13):
Is that overall, that's right?
Moji Karimi (00:32:15):
Yeah, exactly.
Moji Karimi (00:32:16):
And what enabled that again is the fact that half of our team,
Moji Karimi (00:32:21):
they used to work in wastewater treatment and chemical plants.
Moji Karimi (00:32:25):
The other half used to work in high-end pharma, kind of biomanufacturing environments.
Moji Karimi (00:32:33):
The reason these things don't exist today is because these two groups never really
Moji Karimi (00:32:37):
talked to each other in a meaningful way,
Moji Karimi (00:32:39):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:32:39):
But they are now at Zambida and we're in Houston.
Moji Karimi (00:32:42):
That's part of why we're in Houston because Houston people know how to build things
Moji Karimi (00:32:46):
and how to scale things and how to cost control,
Moji Karimi (00:32:49):
do capital projects.
Moji Karimi (00:32:51):
So you add that to, you know, really super capability for engineering, really robust microbes.
Moji Karimi (00:32:59):
And that's really what allowed Zambida to have these breakthroughs.
Silas Mähner (00:33:03):
On this topic, so how does the industrial sector tend to react to adding biotech to their process, right?
Silas Mähner (00:33:11):
In a similar way,
Silas Mähner (00:33:12):
you can imagine five years ago,
Silas Mähner (00:33:14):
if you told somebody to add AI to what they're doing,
Silas Mähner (00:33:16):
they probably would have laughed at you and said,
Silas Mähner (00:33:17):
I don't need to do that.
Silas Mähner (00:33:18):
Is that the same case with industrials?
Silas Mähner (00:33:20):
I mean, I'm particularly interested to ask this now because we're talking about politics, right?
Silas Mähner (00:33:24):
And a lot of the red states have the industry.
Silas Mähner (00:33:26):
A lot of red people, I guess you could say, control these industries.
Silas Mähner (00:33:30):
So I'm just kind of curious how they are receptive to it.
Moji Karimi (00:33:35):
So I guess I'll use this to also tell you about this lesson that I learned.
Moji Karimi (00:33:41):
Early on in the history of Sembita,
Moji Karimi (00:33:44):
We're trying to convince everybody with their passions, like, no, you don't get it.
Moji Karimi (00:33:50):
This industry of biotech is going to be a way to create chemicals, and we're pitching everybody about it.
Moji Karimi (00:33:58):
What I learned was that 90%, 95% of the companies, they're just the wrong people to talk to.
Moji Karimi (00:34:06):
Like, you need someone who has the vision, who thinks first principles.
Moji Karimi (00:34:11):
And you could tell this based on the type of questions that they ask you, right?
Moji Karimi (00:34:15):
They try to understand what you're saying.
Moji Karimi (00:34:17):
They're trying to break it down into sound science principles, right?
Moji Karimi (00:34:23):
As opposed to, yeah, we've heard about that.
Moji Karimi (00:34:25):
It doesn't work.
Moji Karimi (00:34:25):
Like, don't tell us about that.
Moji Karimi (00:34:27):
Or, you know...
Moji Karimi (00:34:29):
That's not helpful.
Moji Karimi (00:34:30):
So when,
Moji Karimi (00:34:31):
for example,
Moji Karimi (00:34:32):
we connected with Oxy,
Moji Karimi (00:34:34):
they have this person there who is really the brain behind a lot of what they've
Moji Karimi (00:34:39):
done and scaled.
Moji Karimi (00:34:40):
And his name is Rob Zeller.
Moji Karimi (00:34:42):
And he joined from OxyChem.
Moji Karimi (00:34:44):
So what that means is he knows chemical industry.
Moji Karimi (00:34:49):
He's not an upstream person.
Moji Karimi (00:34:50):
Upstream people know mostly subsurface, right?
Moji Karimi (00:34:53):
But he had that intellectual dialogue with Tara.
Moji Karimi (00:34:57):
And this is when it was just me and Tara, right, pitching Oxy.
Moji Karimi (00:35:01):
And he got it.
Moji Karimi (00:35:02):
He said, okay, I could see how this could be an enabler.
Moji Karimi (00:35:06):
Then he was looking for proof points.
Moji Karimi (00:35:08):
So he said, okay, can you do X?
Moji Karimi (00:35:11):
And Tara said, yeah, I think it's possible.
Moji Karimi (00:35:13):
He said, okay, well, give us a proposal.
Moji Karimi (00:35:16):
And that turned into the first project.
Moji Karimi (00:35:18):
But the other thing that they did once we started the project, they said,
Moji Karimi (00:35:23):
Ashtar, can you give us a kind of a quick training biotech 101?
Moji Karimi (00:35:28):
And they had chemical process engineers in the room.
Moji Karimi (00:35:31):
And this was the introduction basically to biotech, right?
Moji Karimi (00:35:35):
And once they understood that, wait a minute, inside this microbes is just like a chemical plant.
Moji Karimi (00:35:42):
And I have a framework for that already.
Moji Karimi (00:35:45):
And now fast forward six years later, if you go to a meeting that we have with Oxy,
Moji Karimi (00:35:51):
They say, okay, well, what plasmid are we using for this?
Moji Karimi (00:35:54):
They could read DNA data.
Moji Karimi (00:35:56):
Like this became something that they kind of embraced, right?
Moji Karimi (00:36:01):
So the point is that you have to find the right companies.
Moji Karimi (00:36:05):
And that was a lesson learned for me is to change our strategy to be more like targeted.
Moji Karimi (00:36:11):
And if you find yourself that you're really trying to convince them, it's just the wrong strategy.
Moji Karimi (00:36:17):
Starting point.
Moji Karimi (00:36:17):
And you could tell based on the type of questions.
Moji Karimi (00:36:21):
I mean,
Moji Karimi (00:36:21):
as more proof points become available,
Moji Karimi (00:36:24):
like more companies build plants or succeeding,
Moji Karimi (00:36:27):
then it just starts to become more obvious for others,
Moji Karimi (00:36:30):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:36:30):
So like AI, it's like today, no one would argue with you because it's become obvious.
Moji Karimi (00:36:35):
Biotech is early in that process.
Moji Karimi (00:36:38):
So it's going to take five,
Moji Karimi (00:36:39):
10 years,
Moji Karimi (00:36:39):
which is why it takes someone who has vision,
Moji Karimi (00:36:42):
who could think about the future today and say,
Moji Karimi (00:36:45):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:36:45):
what do we need to do today?
Moji Karimi (00:36:47):
And some are just not that, like some say we're, they tell you like we're fast followers.
Moji Karimi (00:36:52):
It's like, okay, I mean, or we want to be the second person, then the third person to try something.
Moji Karimi (00:36:58):
And it's just, you have to really get past all of those to find the one that is ready to go.
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:03):
And it takes a futurist to figure it out, right?
Moji Karimi (00:37:05):
That's right.
Moji Karimi (00:37:06):
And I mean, a lot of people are futurists, whether they think of it that way or not.
Moji Karimi (00:37:10):
But that's it's just about having that vision about what could be possible and what
Moji Karimi (00:37:15):
should exist today,
Moji Karimi (00:37:16):
what should exist that doesn't exist.
Moji Karimi (00:37:19):
And why not?
Moji Karimi (00:37:20):
Like, let's let's team up and go build that.
Moji Karimi (00:37:22):
Right.
Moji Karimi (00:37:22):
That's how a lot of startups are created.
Moji Karimi (00:37:24):
This is how a lot of these startup partnerships with.
Moji Karimi (00:37:27):
big companies are created.
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:28):
Yeah, we want to end with what being a futurist really means to you.
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:32):
But continuing off of the point of the markets maturing somewhat,
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:35):
it's potentially if you're having FOMO about AI and want to get in the next big
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:39):
hype cycle,
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:40):
maybe it's biotech.
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:41):
You've gone through the process of being able to convince your industry partners,
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:45):
your potential customers,
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:46):
the people you're working with,
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:48):
Switching into the funding side, are you seeing more maturity on the investor side?
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:52):
And specifically,
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:53):
you know,
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:53):
even taking it a step back,
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:54):
what has really worked well for you in convincing investors,
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:57):
you know,
Somil Aggarwal (00:37:58):
people who might understand even less than people who are working on the specific
Somil Aggarwal (00:38:01):
industrial things about your vision,
Somil Aggarwal (00:38:03):
about your technology?
Moji Karimi (00:38:04):
Yeah,
Moji Karimi (00:38:05):
I think what's worked really well is to move away from convincing and see,
Moji Karimi (00:38:09):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:38:10):
what are the investors that already are creating a puzzle?
Moji Karimi (00:38:13):
They're already studying the trends.
Moji Karimi (00:38:16):
in the industry, whether it's AI, whether it's biotech, whether it's energy storage or whatever else.
Moji Karimi (00:38:22):
And they have already formed basically themes or theories about what should exist.
Moji Karimi (00:38:29):
So I don't have to convince them about why industry biotech.
Moji Karimi (00:38:34):
What they're looking for is like, well, why are you guys the best company in that space?
Moji Karimi (00:38:39):
What is special about you guys?
Moji Karimi (00:38:40):
What should we invest in you than someone else?
Moji Karimi (00:38:44):
But finding those is the,
Moji Karimi (00:38:47):
I mean,
Moji Karimi (00:38:47):
that's like one out of 10 investors,
Moji Karimi (00:38:50):
because it takes more resources to be able to do that,
Moji Karimi (00:38:52):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:38:53):
To have the kind of the team to be able to build that puzzle.
Moji Karimi (00:38:56):
So that's why you see some of the bigger firms do it or more experienced, the smaller firms.
Moji Karimi (00:39:00):
And then it's also seeing really from the point of view of the investor,
Moji Karimi (00:39:04):
how could this be a win for them?
Moji Karimi (00:39:06):
Like, what are they looking for?
Moji Karimi (00:39:08):
And so a common trap is, you know, a lot of it's like,
Moji Karimi (00:39:11):
I guess an early mistake that's common is people pitch the same thing to an
Moji Karimi (00:39:16):
investor compared to a customer and investor,
Moji Karimi (00:39:20):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:39:21):
And they're looking for very different things.
Moji Karimi (00:39:22):
So you have to understand the investor's world.
Moji Karimi (00:39:26):
and give them the thing that makes them look good.
Moji Karimi (00:39:28):
But, you know, making sure that's aligned with what we need.
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:32):
Yeah, I kind of want to break that dynamic down into two separate pieces of it, right?
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:36):
Maybe a biotech leaning investor and a generalist investor who you're,
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:40):
well,
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:41):
I guess not convincing,
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:41):
but who is convinced,
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:42):
right?
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:44):
So you said know your investors and what they're looking for.
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:47):
If we can break it down into two quick buckets.
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:49):
One is the biotech investor.
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:51):
What do people who are knowledgeable about the space looking for?
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:54):
And then we're talking about the general person who's just impressed with the opportunity.
Somil Aggarwal (00:39:57):
What attracts them usually?
Moji Karimi (00:39:59):
Yeah, so you need both.
Moji Karimi (00:40:01):
There's a quick answer.
Moji Karimi (00:40:03):
The people who know more about biotech, they've already maybe invested in it before.
Moji Karimi (00:40:10):
Maybe they've had successes.
Moji Karimi (00:40:11):
Maybe they've been burned by it before.
Moji Karimi (00:40:14):
And because they know more about it,
Moji Karimi (00:40:16):
it's interesting dynamics because they come with a perception of like what is possible.
Moji Karimi (00:40:23):
They're very targeted.
Moji Karimi (00:40:24):
They've seen what doesn't work and what fails.
Moji Karimi (00:40:26):
So they want to really quickly get down to say, how are you addressing contamination?
Moji Karimi (00:40:29):
How are you doing the scale up and everything else?
Moji Karimi (00:40:32):
which makes up for exciting conversations.
Moji Karimi (00:40:35):
Those are going to be really tough at the beginning,
Moji Karimi (00:40:38):
but once they see,
Moji Karimi (00:40:39):
oh,
Moji Karimi (00:40:39):
wow,
Moji Karimi (00:40:40):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:40:40):
I see how you've solved this problem,
Moji Karimi (00:40:42):
that problem,
Moji Karimi (00:40:43):
and I see this line of sight that you have to breaking free compared to the last
Moji Karimi (00:40:48):
company that I invested in who said the same thing and failed.
Moji Karimi (00:40:52):
Then they could be, I mean, the best investor, right?
Moji Karimi (00:40:55):
Because they also have so much knowledge and connections about the biotech that they could help.
Moji Karimi (00:40:59):
Then you have the generalist, which they're not as much driven by understanding the process.
Moji Karimi (00:41:07):
It's more about, well, if this works, what does this mean?
Moji Karimi (00:41:12):
Like, how big could this be?
Moji Karimi (00:41:13):
What other possibilities could this create?
Moji Karimi (00:41:16):
We work with both.
Moji Karimi (00:41:17):
And I think a given company does need both.
Moji Karimi (00:41:20):
Building that diversity of thought and having,
Moji Karimi (00:41:22):
basically making room for new possibilities,
Moji Karimi (00:41:27):
I think is very important.
Moji Karimi (00:41:28):
And you get that from the generalist.
Moji Karimi (00:41:30):
But the biotech could actually help you with your scale up and commercialization.
Moji Karimi (00:41:35):
So very different processes,
Moji Karimi (00:41:37):
very different due diligence process that they will go through to get to your final
Moji Karimi (00:41:43):
yes to invest in the company.
Moji Karimi (00:41:47):
I've also talked to investors who are biotech and
Moji Karimi (00:41:50):
They've just been burned so bad before that it's like,
Moji Karimi (00:41:53):
this is nice,
Moji Karimi (00:41:54):
but they need to see you actually doing it.
Moji Karimi (00:41:56):
Like they need to see your first commercial plan up and running.
Moji Karimi (00:41:59):
And some of them, they have the type of checks that they could join at that space and some don't.
Moji Karimi (00:42:06):
So it doesn't work out, but again,
Moji Karimi (00:42:09):
I mean,
Moji Karimi (00:42:10):
you talk to,
Moji Karimi (00:42:11):
I don't know,
Moji Karimi (00:42:13):
100 investors and maybe two or three would end up being tangible,
Moji Karimi (00:42:17):
realistic things that you move forward with.
Moji Karimi (00:42:19):
And there's everything you could imagine in the mix.
Silas Mähner (00:42:22):
So earlier you talked about we're just scratching the surface with biotech.
Silas Mähner (00:42:27):
You've already spun out a couple of companies from Sempita as a platform.
Silas Mähner (00:42:30):
What are,
Silas Mähner (00:42:31):
let's say,
Silas Mähner (00:42:31):
one or two other ideas you have for where biotech can be applicable to industry or
Silas Mähner (00:42:36):
climate tech specifically?
Moji Karimi (00:42:37):
I think the one that I think is just the ultimate AI,
Moji Karimi (00:42:43):
the ultimate solution to this issue that we have with the data usage for AI is
Moji Karimi (00:42:50):
going to be biological molecular data storage and computing.
Moji Karimi (00:42:55):
like redoing basically how computers are built, how supercomputers are built from principles of biology.
Moji Karimi (00:43:04):
Storing data, I mean, on DNA is super efficient, super robust.
Moji Karimi (00:43:10):
I mean, we're finding DNA from like millions of years ago, and then we're still decoding it.
Moji Karimi (00:43:16):
It's preserved, but it's like really robust material for data storage.
Moji Karimi (00:43:20):
And then
Moji Karimi (00:43:21):
Then you have something like peptides, which are like proteins, which are more robust even.
Moji Karimi (00:43:27):
So something like, say, your nail is made out of those peptides and proteins, right?
Moji Karimi (00:43:31):
So it could be media for data storage and computing.
Moji Karimi (00:43:35):
The computing part,
Moji Karimi (00:43:36):
I think,
Moji Karimi (00:43:37):
is also really interesting because,
Moji Karimi (00:43:38):
like,
Moji Karimi (00:43:39):
as right now,
Moji Karimi (00:43:40):
there's like thousands of equations being solved in our body,
Moji Karimi (00:43:45):
in our brain,
Moji Karimi (00:43:45):
in real time,
Moji Karimi (00:43:46):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:43:47):
And it's all happening under ambient pressure and temperature and off of,
Moji Karimi (00:43:51):
I don't know,
Moji Karimi (00:43:52):
2,000 calories a day or whatever.
Moji Karimi (00:43:55):
So super efficient.
Moji Karimi (00:43:57):
And we're just starting to understand, okay, what would that look like?
Moji Karimi (00:44:01):
And there's, of course, a lot of sci-fi movies that are based on that, right?
Moji Karimi (00:44:06):
Even Matrix is kind of about that whole thing is about that, right?
Moji Karimi (00:44:12):
I think there's a lot of potential in that area,
Moji Karimi (00:44:14):
and I think it will help a lot also with the climate change.
Moji Karimi (00:44:19):
The other more tangible, maybe more short-term use cases, I really like self-healing materials.
Moji Karimi (00:44:27):
I really like basically replicating what the coral reef is doing for, say, production of concrete.
Moji Karimi (00:44:35):
This is made biologically.
Moji Karimi (00:44:37):
Microbial fuel cells is another amazing one.
Moji Karimi (00:44:41):
could get microbes to produce electricity.
Moji Karimi (00:44:43):
There's also a lot of ways that waste water,
Moji Karimi (00:44:47):
waste,
Moji Karimi (00:44:47):
not just water,
Moji Karimi (00:44:48):
but any kind of resource we could leverage microbes for a more efficient process.
Moji Karimi (00:44:52):
This end to end that is not just treating something, it's actually creating something valuable out of it.
Moji Karimi (00:44:59):
So this is actually something that I just love to,
Moji Karimi (00:45:03):
I study that and see,
Moji Karimi (00:45:04):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:45:05):
what are the timelines for those and what trends
Moji Karimi (00:45:09):
need to come together to enable a given application.
Moji Karimi (00:45:14):
The way I think about it is,
Moji Karimi (00:45:16):
say for Uber to happen,
Moji Karimi (00:45:19):
you need GPS,
Moji Karimi (00:45:20):
you need cell phones that are small enough to be in someone's pocket,
Moji Karimi (00:45:24):
and then it needs to have Wi-Fi.
Moji Karimi (00:45:26):
All those things need to come together to enable that.
Moji Karimi (00:45:29):
It's the same thing.
Moji Karimi (00:45:32):
What is the cost of engineering?
Moji Karimi (00:45:34):
What's the demand for the end product?
Moji Karimi (00:45:36):
What's the use case?
Moji Karimi (00:45:37):
With all of these things, timing is the most important parameter.
Moji Karimi (00:45:40):
So most people think, you know, next kind of year, next two, three, five years.
Moji Karimi (00:45:45):
But it's fun also to think behind that, like next 20, 30, 50 years.
Silas Mähner (00:45:50):
I'm pretty mind blown, man.
Silas Mähner (00:45:51):
I'm not going to lie.
Silas Mähner (00:45:51):
I'm going to have to go back and do some digging after we publish this.
Silas Mähner (00:45:56):
Let's kind of wrap up the show here.
Silas Mähner (00:45:57):
I've got a couple of quick hits for you at the end.
Silas Mähner (00:45:59):
We'll just keep these kind of short rapid fire questions.
Silas Mähner (00:46:02):
What is one clean techie or startup or just investment fund that you want to shout out and why?
Moji Karimi (00:46:09):
You know,
Moji Karimi (00:46:09):
the one that comes to mind,
Moji Karimi (00:46:10):
we were talking about earlier about those who think about,
Moji Karimi (00:46:14):
okay,
Moji Karimi (00:46:14):
if X is possible,
Moji Karimi (00:46:15):
what does that mean?
Moji Karimi (00:46:17):
And how would that transform everything else?
Moji Karimi (00:46:19):
And 80-90 Industries is one of those.
Moji Karimi (00:46:22):
And what I like about them is that they just started just a few years ago and no
Moji Karimi (00:46:27):
one knew about them when they led our series A.
Moji Karimi (00:46:29):
But since then,
Moji Karimi (00:46:30):
they have really created this established portfolio as well as just like a mindset
Moji Karimi (00:46:37):
of their approach,
Moji Karimi (00:46:38):
climate tech.
Moji Karimi (00:46:39):
to creating this like industries of the future across the board,
Moji Karimi (00:46:43):
if it's nuclear,
Moji Karimi (00:46:44):
if it's geothermal,
Moji Karimi (00:46:45):
if it's biology.
Moji Karimi (00:46:47):
And that was because of the vision that Rayon had, that Kerm had, the co-founders for the DCARP fund.
Moji Karimi (00:46:54):
And it's just fun working with them.
Moji Karimi (00:46:56):
I think they've also have this attitude,
Moji Karimi (00:46:59):
like just being super helpful to entrepreneurs,
Moji Karimi (00:47:01):
like from the first moment that you meet them,
Moji Karimi (00:47:04):
it feels like they're part of the team.
Moji Karimi (00:47:07):
And that is really what drew us to them.
Moji Karimi (00:47:10):
For anyone,
Moji Karimi (00:47:10):
I think in climate tech,
Moji Karimi (00:47:12):
it's just interesting to watch what they're doing and the material that they put out,
Moji Karimi (00:47:17):
thought pieces around basically how industries are being transformed.
Moji Karimi (00:47:21):
Those are some of those like signals, right?
Moji Karimi (00:47:25):
In terms of those trends that could create different possibilities in the future.
Moji Karimi (00:47:31):
So yeah, 89 Industries, I would say is the one that...
Moji Karimi (00:47:35):
know they they definitely deserve more uh credit yeah after this episode we need
Silas Mähner (00:47:41):
you to text ryan and have him come on the pod we need to get him on uh they're also
Silas Mähner (00:47:46):
doing a really good job i want to shout out the fact that they do really good job
Silas Mähner (00:47:48):
at storytelling so i think that's for me why i think they're super interesting uh
Silas Mähner (00:47:52):
all right next one what is an underrated founder in climate yeah i think i'll have
Moji Karimi (00:47:58):
to say liz dennett the ceo of company
Moji Karimi (00:48:01):
for sustainable mining called Endolith.
Moji Karimi (00:48:03):
The reason I think she's underrated is because you have people like Liz who have
Moji Karimi (00:48:10):
the technical background,
Moji Karimi (00:48:11):
but they also have the business savvy and they are doing it.
Moji Karimi (00:48:15):
And it's really difficult to do this in hard tech, in deep tech, right?
Moji Karimi (00:48:20):
And to make those kind of advancements in an industry, say like mining, really, really tough.
Moji Karimi (00:48:26):
Like you think oil and gas is tough, mining is like 10 times harder.
Moji Karimi (00:48:30):
to really move forward and change and challenge the status quo and she's doing it.
Moji Karimi (00:48:35):
Also because I think mining is an area that deserves a lot of attention because a
Moji Karimi (00:48:40):
lot of,
Moji Karimi (00:48:41):
I mean,
Moji Karimi (00:48:41):
what enables energy transition is going to come from mining,
Moji Karimi (00:48:45):
whether it's copper or lithium and everything else,
Moji Karimi (00:48:48):
critical minerals.
Moji Karimi (00:48:49):
And so we need more sustainable mining and Liz Dennett has a vision to help the
Moji Karimi (00:48:55):
industry transform,
Moji Karimi (00:48:56):
find new ways to be more efficient and doing a great job on that.
Moji Karimi (00:49:00):
And yeah, I am just inspired to watch her do what she does.
Moji Karimi (00:49:06):
And I think, yeah, she's one of my favorite founders for sure.
Silas Mähner (00:49:09):
Liz has amazing LinkedIn content, I have to say.
Silas Mähner (00:49:12):
I'm a big fan.
Silas Mähner (00:49:13):
Okay, final one here.
Silas Mähner (00:49:15):
What is a piece of content that you're enjoying recently that you want to shout out?
Moji Karimi (00:49:22):
Yeah, I mean, there's in between podcasts and books and things.
Moji Karimi (00:49:28):
Well,
Moji Karimi (00:49:29):
More recently, watching Mad Men again.
Moji Karimi (00:49:33):
And it's just amazing,
Moji Karimi (00:49:34):
like the fundamentals of messaging that applies also to what we do,
Moji Karimi (00:49:40):
I think to the industry as a whole.
Moji Karimi (00:49:43):
So yeah,
Moji Karimi (00:49:43):
I think if anyone hasn't watched Mad Men,
Moji Karimi (00:49:45):
that's probably a good thing to do,
Moji Karimi (00:49:48):
especially if you're in
Moji Karimi (00:49:49):
any kind of a strategy type position.
Somil Aggarwal (00:49:51):
I'll out myself by saying I have not.
Somil Aggarwal (00:49:54):
So you gave your first convinced clean techie here.
Somil Aggarwal (00:49:58):
Yeah, this has been fantastic.
Somil Aggarwal (00:50:00):
Before we close, where can the audience find you?
Moji Karimi (00:50:02):
Okay, well, LinkedIn probably is a good place.
Moji Karimi (00:50:05):
Also, I do have a website or I guess you could call it a blog or platform called Persian Alien.
Moji Karimi (00:50:12):
So it's PersianAlien.com.
Moji Karimi (00:50:14):
That's where I kind of
Moji Karimi (00:50:17):
It's not about Sembita,
Moji Karimi (00:50:18):
but it's like my thoughts around futurism,
Moji Karimi (00:50:20):
culture,
Moji Karimi (00:50:21):
technology,
Moji Karimi (00:50:22):
science,
Moji Karimi (00:50:23):
kind of combining it all.
Moji Karimi (00:50:24):
And then that's,
Moji Karimi (00:50:25):
yeah,
Moji Karimi (00:50:25):
that's where you could find more of a,
Moji Karimi (00:50:27):
there's a Sembita emoji and then there's the Persian L emoji.
Moji Karimi (00:50:30):
So LinkedIn and PersianL.com probably is a good place.
Somil Aggarwal (00:50:35):
Real quick, where did the name come from?
Somil Aggarwal (00:50:36):
Can we get the etymology?
Moji Karimi (00:50:38):
Sorry, say that again?
Somil Aggarwal (00:50:40):
Where did the name come from?
Moji Karimi (00:50:41):
Well, I grew up in Iran, so that's my ethnicity.
Moji Karimi (00:50:46):
And then the alien part is it's more from the point of view of I feel like an outsider to the industry.
Moji Karimi (00:50:52):
I always want to do things like think differently.
Moji Karimi (00:50:56):
That's part of this biotech coming together with the energy and creating this new
Moji Karimi (00:51:03):
way of thinking about things.
Moji Karimi (00:51:05):
And I think there's a lot of people,
Moji Karimi (00:51:07):
especially that's a category usually where you become an entrepreneur because you
Moji Karimi (00:51:12):
think differently and you want to challenge something,
Moji Karimi (00:51:15):
right?
Moji Karimi (00:51:15):
So I wanted to create this as just putting something in the universe.
Moji Karimi (00:51:20):
Maybe you will form into more of a formal community or something to bring people like that together.
Moji Karimi (00:51:26):
And then there is the futurist part of it.
Moji Karimi (00:51:28):
There is this kind of alien is just thinking kind of beyond.
Moji Karimi (00:51:32):
And if this was to be done completely differently, how would that be, right?
Moji Karimi (00:51:37):
And so this little meetups that we have in Houston with,
Moji Karimi (00:51:41):
the Persian aliens that, or I guess aliens that join is that.
Moji Karimi (00:51:47):
And to be in a room,
Moji Karimi (00:51:48):
talk to people from different industries,
Moji Karimi (00:51:50):
very different backgrounds,
Moji Karimi (00:51:53):
you get a lot of ideas.
Moji Karimi (00:51:54):
And I think there should be more collaboration in our industry for those, right?
Moji Karimi (00:51:59):
More connections to be made beyond just say, I grew up working just next to engineers.
Moji Karimi (00:52:05):
I didn't know about
Moji Karimi (00:52:07):
someone who is a marketing director at the agency in new york like what's their
Moji Karimi (00:52:11):
life like like how do they think about trends and industry right so that's just a
Moji Karimi (00:52:16):
way to basically have that exposure that's a perfect way to end thanks so much for
Moji Karimi (00:52:21):
coming on moji absolutely my pleasure thank you guys
