Friday, September 27, 2019
Han Chen, Co-founder and CEO, ZeaKal
San Diego-based ZeaKal (www.zeakal.com) recently announced a $15M, Series C funding round for its efforts to develop plant traits which increase the efficiency of photosynthesis. The company is backed by Canopy Rivers, Finistere Ventures, and Middleland Capital. We caught up with co-founder and CEO Han Chen to better understand what the company is working on, and some of the complexity of getting their technology to market.
What is ZeaKal working on?
Han Chen: As you know,we are facing a lot of climate issues today. Our population is going to increase significantly, and we have thirty years to increase plant productivity in order to meet demand, or the world could face starvation. What we've done, is we've increased the plant's ability to convert more sunlight into the thing that affects us all, including producing more food, more fuel, and more fiber. We are trying to provide more yields and more nutrition from plants, and trying to do that in an environmentally sustainable way.
How are you able to do that?
Han Chen: If you go back to high school biology, green plants go through photosynthesis, taking sunlight and CO2, and converting that into more food and fiber. What we do, is increase the plant's efficiency and ability to fix more CO2 from the environment, take in more sunlight, and create more yield, without any additional inputs of chemicals and fertilizers. What we do is improve the plant s genetics. Photosynthesis is very complex and difficult. What we try to do, is work with a plant's natural chemistry, and the pathways that area already there, and tweak and optimize them, allowing he plant to recycle CO2 at a faster rate. Because they are more efficient, the plants grow faster and larer, and a lot of the extra energy they are creating now is being shoveled through the plant into areas that matter. For example, in the seed crops we grow today, such as canola, corn, and soy, where we've spent a millennium breeding them so that they are very good at putting that energy into seed, what we're doing now is increasing their capability to put even more energy into that seed.
Where did this technology come from originally?
Han Chen: It originally came out in New Zealand. In a previous life, I was Managing Director of a technology incubation firm called Kapyon Ventures. We partnered with a group called New Zealand Ag Research, one of the largest research institutes in New Zealand focused on plant sciences. We've been working together for several years. Originally, the concept was to use this to improve grasses in New Zealand for more energy and yield, and to reduce the carbon footprint of ryegrass. New Zealand has a high focus on sustainable agriculture. However, we saw that this technology actually had applications across all plants. Ag Research and Kapyon Ventures came together as co-founders, and started Zeakal. We raised our first round in 2013.
Is this in use in plants now, or how far along is this from seeing this in the field?
Han Chen: We're still in development. We have crops now that are in multi-year field trails, and are testing them extensively, working with lots of industry leading partners. Some of our partners include Corteva, one of the largest seed companies in the world, Canopy Rivers, one of the largest cammabis companies in the world, and we're a few years away from getting this onto the market. We hope to see this product in the market in the next few years.
Consumers seem very dubious of genetically modified plants, how does this affect you and how you get to market?
Han Chen: Absolutely this is something we keep in the front of our mind. The consumer is the most important person, ultimately, although historically in the seed business these were sold just to farmers. The safety of modifying genetics with traits is very well proven. But, our industry as a whole hasn't done a great job of communicating those benefits and safety to consumers. As a result, it's left this void open, which has allowed for misinformation and the sentiment of fear to fill this space. We've been very vocal in explaining how Zeakal is a great example of the power of biology and trait technology. It's the first trait technology not tied to a chemical or pesticide. There's been a lot of concern that these new traits are simply putting more pesticides into the environment, which is a fair concern. Our trait here uses natural plant genes, and works with a plant's natural biochemistry. All it is doing is taking more CO2 out of the air, without adding more inputs. That's really what the promise is, to make planst more efficient, and reducing the environmental impact using the technology we're implementing. Beyond just yield, the other big part of the program, Is increasing the amount of oils, and healthier fats. There's a challenge in producing enough food in a the world, as it is devastated by climate change and poverty. In the developed world, calories are not the problem, nutrition is. There is not enough technology focused on nutrition. The crops we're working on, we're improving the nutritional profile, not just to get more calories, but to get heart healthy oils and proteins. The third leg of Zeakal is industrial usage. We believe that we can be carbon neutral, if not carbon negative, for crops like hemp. Hemp is being grown for medical purposes, for is CDB. But, it's also an industrial crop which can replace fossil fuels for a number of areas. It can be used for biodiesel, it can be a source of plastics, and it's a great alternative fiber that uses less input than crops like cotton. It can even be used for energy storage. Hemp has conductivity properties which can be used in electric vehicles and batteries. Biology and agriculture really plays a role in sustainability and climate change, and we need to communicate that to consumers, so they have the confidence that what we're developing has benefits and safety. We will be very transparent about what we're doing. It's not just safe, but it's environmentally sustainable and healthy.
What's the biggest challenge for you in getting adoption for your technology?
Han Chen: If you're in tech and software, going from proof of concept to launch is a very short time line. But, innovation in agriculture is always going to be slow. There's a number of reasons for this. One, is you can't change timelines in nature. A soybean plant will take five to six months to grow to get through its growth cycle. You just can't accelerate that, from a product development standpoint. You have to understand the shortcomings of that and evaluate things as early as possible, because there are natural alws you just can't change. Second, agriculture is one of the oldest and most conservative industries in the world. If you think about it, agriculture is one of the last frontiers to adopt technology. New innovations are looked at with skepticism. If you think about it, and to be fair to farmers, the average farmer will only see 25 to 30 growth cycles in their working life. Those are 25-30 times where a decision can put their livelihood at risk, and put their legacy and intergenerational assets at risk. They are not about to take on something that is not very well proven or trusted. That why it takes much longer than other industries for them to adopt technology. That's a compounding factor which makes innovation here more challenging than other sectors.
Thanks!