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