Can Probiotics Save our Coral Reefs? Benjamin Alva, Azul Bio

In this podcast episode, Abigail interviews Benjamin, founder of Azul Bio and participant in the Ocean Pitch Contest by the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. 

The discussion focuses on Benjamin's startup, which aims to save coral reefs from extinction caused by ocean warming. Benjamin explains the importance of coral reefs for ocean life and human livelihoods and describes Azul Bio's innovative solution: coral microbiome boosters. 

These boosters enhance the heat tolerance of coral reefs, helping them survive and recover from bleaching events. 

Benjamin highlights the technical aspects of their solution, the potential impact on global coral conservation, and the importance of collaboration with other coral restoration organizations. 

The conversation also covers the business aspects of Azul Bio, their funding journey, and the future prospects of their technology.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:22 The Problem: Coral Reef Extinction

00:55 Understanding Coral Bleaching

01:35 Human Impact and Coastal Protection

03:34 Azul Bio's Innovative Solution

04:13 Microbiome Boosters in Detail

09:21 Field Application and Testing

13:06 Business Model and Partnerships

16:59 Challenges and Future Plans

26:08 Funding and Competitions

30:52 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

Happy Planet - Azul Bio 

[00:00:00] Abigail: Welcome to the podcast, Benjamin. 

Thank you for having me. 

[00:00:13] Abigail: So you have a startup called Azul Bio, and you recently placed in the Ocean Pitch Contest that is organized by the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. What is the problem that Azul Bio is trying to solve? 

Yeah, so we are addressing the existential threat of core reef extinction.

They provide direct support for 25 percent of all ocean life and income and nourishment for 1 billion humans on the planet. So they're extremely critical a natural asset, but 50 percent have already died and 90 percent will be wiped out over the next 20 years, mainly due to ocean warming. 

[00:00:55] Abigail: So what is causing this?

[00:00:57] Abigail: This diet. We hear about coral bleaching and things like that. Is this is this part of the problem that you're talking about? 

Exactly. So coral bleaching is usually a symptom of some type of shock. The majority of cases is associated with the ocean warming, right? Like heat shock, temperature increase as climate change, you know, progresses and accelerates in its intensity.

These bleaching events are occurring at a much more frequent rate. So, you know, once in a hundred year event is now once every five to 10 years. 

[00:01:31] Abigail: Yeah. A hundred year storms are happening like every, every six months, it seems. So you mentioned, I think it's pretty easy for people to get their head around why The, disruption of these coral reefs would be so impactful to the ocean, but you mentioned the human implication.

[00:01:46] Abigail: Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? 

 In terms of the decline of, of coral reefs, of course, you're going to see huge losses, biodiversity. They are the cornerstone. organism of the ocean, right?

Again, supporting that quarter of all ocean life. But in terms of humans a billion to 3 billion people, depending on, you know, how you estimate this figure rely on coral reefs for income and nourishment. So basically having their livelihoods be based off of it, the majority of their protein source coming from the fish stocks that use the reefs as their natural habitat mostly in tropical countries, right, where these coral reefs reside.

But in addition to those, Those threats, there's also the loss of coastal protection. So core reefs are breaking waves and dissipating 97 percent of a lot of that wave energy before it hits the coastline. So they're, they're massive biological storm breakers that are protecting a lot of these very expensive properties and and, and other real estate that are in these Tropical countries.

So when those air gone, you know, the say thousands of years of protection that it provided will be wiped out. You know, for good. It will be really hard to get that back. And it will take decades to restore it if it's even possible. So it's incredibly important that we deserve that now because other solutions like building concrete walls to break the waves, then they provide very little support for biodiversity, right?

They're kind of purely to protect against that coastline. But again, a concrete wall doesn't also, you know, it doesn't bio doesn't regenerate unlike coral. So if the environment is healthy and stable, coral will continually build up and repair itself organically. So

[00:03:34] Abigail: So what is your approach? How are you going to help restore these coral reefs? 

At AzulBio, we are creating what we call coral microbiome boosters. So these are isolated bacteria from resilient coral that then can be Uploaded or installed into the rest of the coral reef who is susceptible, right, to threats like ocean warming.

And that will increase their own heat tolerance and be able to survive the, say, reoccurring heat waves that are wiping out coral, causing bleaching and then subsequent coral mortality. 

[00:04:12] Abigail: Right. So let's, let's get into a little bit the details because when a coral reef bleaches, the skeleton is still there. So there's some, there's a, there's a structure for you to work with. Is that, is that accurate? 

[00:04:25] Benjamin: , well, when the coral, the coral is bleached, you know, that means it could still be alive. You know, in most cases it is alive, right, for a short amount of time.

[00:04:34] Benjamin: But if there's a prolonged stress event where it's, you know, it's warm for a very long period uh, say, you know, a week, a couple of weeks you know, it becomes there's a greater probability of that cold dying off because it starves to death, right? Yeah. Cause it requires the, say the microalgae that's symbiotic with the coral that it gives it its color, right?

[00:04:52] Benjamin: It gets expelled. And, you know, these algae were producing, these symbiotic algae were producing the majority of their food source in a lot of cases. So, and also just the event itself is very stressful to the tissue, right, to, to the coral organism causing damage and stress directly. 

[00:05:09] Abigail: Yep. So with your, with your, your microbiome boosters, you're really, the coral can really actually regrow.

[00:05:17] Benjamin: Yeah. So the microbiome boosters are you could say like the, the only proactive approach, right? There is coral restoration where you have, say, instead of you know, manually out planting coral one by one, trying to restore what was previously there. Um, This approach is to increase the resiliency of the millions of hectares of coral that currently exist in the wild.

[00:05:38] Benjamin: So increasing their ability to survive. So this would of course, protect them from from damage from, well, from, from death associated with heat induced bleaching but also cause them to be overall healthier and, you know, increasing reproductive rates and seeing that core population expand hopefully over the coming years in a treated area versus decline, right.

[00:05:58] Benjamin: Due to those mass bleaching events. 

[00:06:01] Abigail: So there's a, there's a specific window in which you want to be able to address this. It sounds like it's either a healthy, a healthy coral could benefit from it because you could help it grow uh, faster and accelerate. And that would have, you know, net benefits or, you know, maybe a bleached but not yet deceased coral where it needs some help to get, get, get back up and running.

[00:06:25] Benjamin: Exactly. Preferentially, you apply this, you know, right before the season starts of, of of bleaching, right before the summer months and it can remain healthy and stable through that period but also it could be used as an emergency measure, right, where the coral is already stressed. and you apply this as a, as a treatment to then ensure that the coral survives during that period and also recovers because the two outcomes of this treatment is one increased heat tolerance just objectively.

[00:06:50] Benjamin: So reducing the bleaching or mitigating it completely during temperature events, right? Depends on how hot it gets, right? If it's very hot, then it might be hard to completely defend against it. But the second outcome is Is recovery right of the majority of the treated coral. So when there's a long bleaching event, most coral die from that.

[00:07:08] Benjamin: But you know, what, what, what results have shown with this treatment is that the corals will bounce back and recover um, even after a long period of heat stress. 

[00:07:18] Abigail: listeners are gonna hear the word microbiome and we're gonna think about our guts. Is it?

[00:07:22] Abigail: It's a similar philosophy, correct? 

[00:07:25] Benjamin: Exactly. Yeah, it's the corals. You could say yeah, kind of gut microbiota, right? So it's just how humans you know, a lot of how we digest food, how we process it, even communication with the brain, the gut brain axis where there's just so much that the gut controls and the microbiota that are in the gut.

[00:07:42] Benjamin: In that, and this is the same for the coral, but but way more important. So the coral itself is more of a super organism, right? It's not just the, the coral. It's it's the coral with a huge array of, symbiotic microalgae, bacteria other types of of microbial organisms. So it, it is like one of the most complex and most say interdependent organism on the planet where it relies so much off of its microbiome that lives in symbiosis with it.

[00:08:07] Abigail: , how would you figure out what is the right microbiome consistency and, and how would you, how would you get it to the coral? Because it's a, it's a wild world down there with a lot of moving parts.

[00:08:19] Benjamin: Yeah. So in terms of initial development we are aiming to have one very effective treatment that can span several different species. And this would be for a particular core reef macro region. So you can think of that as, say there's one , particular formulation for the Florida Keys or the Mesoamerican Reef or the Maldives.

[00:08:42] Benjamin: And this will be, you know, we have a formula sheet for what microbe we want to include in there, but yes, we go out to those regions, sample coral, and then we identify which of the bacteria we want to find those bacteria or bacteria with interchangeable functionality, and then put that and create that formulation that we can just repeat in every single region, but with native microbiota, which is, you know, it gets around, kind of accelerates our ability to then scaled those treatments in those countries in those regions, right?

[00:09:11] Benjamin: And also potentially increasing efficacy as well, using those those native microbiota and also reducing any risk, right? Of cross contamination between different regions. Yeah, in terms of getting it out there to the field, how do you apply it in the ocean? So we embed these beneficial bacteria, the C. M.

[00:09:29] Benjamin: B. In a hydrogel material. That we turn into particles. So there's these particles of hydrogel that have the bacteria inside of them that can then be sprayed on coral underwater, just like you, a farmer on land would spray fertilizer on crops, kind of spot spraying, you know, dozens of crops you know, per minute.

[00:09:48] Benjamin: So. You can spray the particles on. It has a property where it adheres to the coral surface. And then it biodegrades over one to two weeks, slowly releasing the CMB bacteria at the surface of the coral and maximizing the treatment's efficacy. 

[00:10:05] Abigail: And presumably because the, of, you know, the coral is establishing this ecosystem that all of those other critters around appreciate and are, are gravitate towards, that would be um, a welcoming environment for them too.

[00:10:20] Abigail: So if a fish, if a fish got some of the CMB attached to it, you know, this wouldn't have a deleterious outcome. 

[00:10:29] Benjamin: Yeah. In terms of like you know, what off target effects would be potentially. So, In terms of off target effects, it would be you know, very minimal.

[00:10:37] Benjamin: And just for reference, our first field. Pilots are lined up to occur at the end of this year. So quarter four of 2024 arise. So this will be huge. You know, one of the first companies to actually ever conduct environmental bioengineering to combat climate change, which will be, yeah, for us, it will be quite a milestone.

[00:10:56] Benjamin: But also, you know, Showcase and we'll get a huge amount of useful data and generation and generate a ton of useful data and I will unlock a lot of doors for us working with a number of other groups in different countries. But there is one academic lab who actually did the first field test of a coral microbiome booster, and this is from KAUST.

[00:11:18] Benjamin: So they created a very localized formulation. And they've been, this is in the lab at KAUST that has been working on the solution for, for years, if not nearly a decade. Really the pioneers and a lot of early work, still progressing now can be contributed to them. But they have tested this.

[00:11:39] Benjamin: The first paper was published at the beginning of this year. And And it showcased that there was no off target effect. So they analyzed the microbiome composition in the coral, of course, that were treated the the benthic. So kind of the soil underwater, as well as the water column. And there was no signs of the, CMB within the coral.

[00:11:57] Benjamin: Those areas. So basically it does not really you know, it needs the coral to live symbiotically. So that's very much tied right to staying on that coral. But also this is, you know, material this is, these are bacteria that already say native or already like in the water column or can or right in the water column to some extent.

[00:12:13] Benjamin: And there's also a ton of competition. So when they're outside of that, that symbiotic protection, the coral provides there's so many other microbes that are competing with each other that they they, you know, they typically dissipate after a very short amount of time. 

[00:12:25] Abigail: You mentioned earlier, you know, another strategy might be, , people are trying to plant coral reefs.

[00:12:31] Abigail: Is that a, is that a symbiotic relationship for you, for your, and your company? Is that something, would it be useful to plant these in those soon to be planted baby corals?

[00:12:43] Benjamin: Exactly. So, yeah, we don't view other coral restoration organizations as our competitor. They really are a collaborator or partner where the treatment can be applied to coral being outplanted and then those coral will have that increased resiliency.

[00:12:58] Benjamin: So, basically, like a vaccine booster. You can think of it like that, where then it goes out in the wild and is immune to these effects. Yeah. Yeah. But in addition to them using the CMB treatments our business model at AzulBio is based around what you can call a light touch service where we are planning to essentially produce CMBs at a large scale and then coordinate and sell those treatment services around the world in those key, regional coral reef markets.

[00:13:27] Benjamin: And. Then we will have already have partnered with a number of regional core restoration groups, which are either NGOs, nonprofits for profit core restoration organizations who have authority to treat a very large area of, of coast, right. To manipulate the, the core ecosystem already have the permits.

[00:13:47] Benjamin: They've been working in these areas for years and These will be the groups will actually then be applying and going out there and treating the locations that were paid for. And we have a revenue sharing policy with these groups as well. So expanding the working capacity of groups around the world, while also providing this proactive core with protection in one.

[00:14:07] Benjamin: So I think this is a really amazing. 

[00:14:10] Abigail: So, do you have a sense of what the rate of acceleration is if you use this booster how much faster can it grow if it's microbiome is enhanced?

[00:14:23] Benjamin: Yeah. So that's, that's something that, you know, the jury's out on. We don't know, like explicitly we need. To collect sufficient data on, you know, what that looks like both in the, in the lab and in the field, what is the expanded growth rate of coral? And that's something that also is measured over the long term as well.

[00:14:40] Benjamin: Right. Exactly. So that's something that we're looking to like precisely quantify, but 

[00:14:45] Abigail: yeah. But we know it can help a sick coral reef get better. 

[00:14:50] Benjamin: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So it's more, yeah, it's about you know, there's, there's also various formulations of CMVs that can be developed with like unique benefits, you know, selecting bacteria with unique benefits that they provide.

[00:15:01] Benjamin: So one can be more specialized for increasing the growth rate, say within a particular environment or to increase the growth rate in a acidified, right. Local marine Ecosystem, just like, you know, for example, like on the West Coast of the U. S. or even Hawaii, heat induced core bleaching is not a significant issue, but they are dealing with slowing coral growth rates due to the increasing acidification.

[00:15:26] Abigail: So can the CMB basically. Like it might in your gut help you be more resilient towards a more acid environment, like, or, or a warmer environment. I mean, could you, can you, can you engineer it in that way? Make the, make the coral more, more resilient? 

[00:15:42] Benjamin: Yeah, that, that, that is the premise. Yeah. So, so the the bacteria that are being introduced, they cause an array of changes. The most prominent is a change in transcription in the coral. So basically. The coral in response to these bacteria colonizing their surface, it changes its own physiology.

[00:15:58] Benjamin: So it's expressing more, yeah, changing, it's, it's producing more stress factors, changing the composition of its lipid membrane to be more resilient as well as, um, as well as the bacteria itself, breaking down reactive oxygen species, which is a, you know, a symptom of, Of heat where well, they, they start occurring and they, the reactive oxygen species causes tissue damage and those, you know, micro microbial organisms can break them down.

[00:16:24] Benjamin: So there's a, there's a couple of different Attributes. In addition to that, they also, they introduced microbial community increases the cycling of nutrients so that there's right, the the coral itself and the zoanthellae are, are getting more, say, metabolites so they are healthier and more robust during these stressful events.

[00:16:43] Abigail: Yeah, interesting. So I've, I've met a lot of companies in the, in the ocean space and a lot of people interested in the reefs, but this is really a first for me in this sort of microbiome application. How'd you get into this? And, and why are you interested in studying this? This problem. 

[00:17:04] Benjamin: Yeah.

[00:17:04] Benjamin: So my background is cellular and molecular bioengineering focused on creating microbial communities that can say work with the environment to combat climate change. And that is on earth but also to expand human habitation and space environments using resources you could find on the moon and Mars.

[00:17:23] Benjamin: So I've worked with NASA academic groups, ride in and other biotech startups as well. But for me, and then this this mission you know, all the way back in 2028, when the last mass bleaching event occurred, you know, all these news right, these all media channels were coming up with a lot of articles like CNN, et cetera, constantly about the event.

[00:17:43] Benjamin: And to me, it was very clear that traditional restoration techniques were not. Enough right to combat this existential crisis of ocean warming, which is due to this accelerated climate change. So coming from a bioengineering background, I thought there that I needed to apply my skills right as soon as possible.

[00:17:59] Benjamin: And this was truly an urgent issue. You know, this you know, we don't need to, this isn't building an app where we, you know, you could do that anytime, but this is to provide a solution. Within the next 20 years before 90 percent of the, of these coral populations are wiped out. So to create some type of method, method that could elevate the resiliency of the wild coral, right?

[00:18:19] Benjamin: That exists because you can, the, the rate of, of out planting of coral is 0. 00001 percent of what is being lost. So, like, the scale is Is like, it's unimaginable that we would be able to restore the reefs with current technology, maybe in a hundred years or something or longer, but at that point the corals will be more or less extinct.

[00:18:42] Abigail: Right. So this is, this allows us to do it a lot faster. Because if you can treat the. Right. 

[00:18:49] Benjamin: It's more of a proactive approach, right? Like where there's no solution to protect wild coral reef. They're of like, you know, of those of colonies that have existed for, you know, have been living for decades, right?

[00:18:59] Benjamin: Or new colonies as well. So this is a way to give them an That allows them to survive kind of this new these new conditions of the environment, which includes increasing you know, hotter temperatures as well as a greater acidification and, and other threats that could exist as well.

[00:19:15] Abigail: So how are people reacting to this? Cause you, you know, you mentioned the partners who are going to be applying it and you know, you've got, presumably you're, you're speaking to people around the world what is the reaction? 

[00:19:27] Benjamin: Like of the solution and what the potential is.

[00:19:30] Abigail: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:31] Benjamin: Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, this is I mean, from one angle, of course, it's a huge a huge hope, right? I mean, there's, there's very, very few people who who wouldn't want to help this effort, right? To have this technology be. So obviously it's, it's very hopeful, especially for people who are quite familiar with the coral field.

[00:19:48] Benjamin: Right now, but there is also you know, a couple of different angles, right? So everybody wants to help. But then if you look at, say certain groups in venture capital. This is a more, you know, riskier venture for sure. But the impact is dramatic, right? I mean, there's very few organizations who have such a direct impact, especially when we're dealing with increasing CO2 and The production of CO2 is not, is definitely not going to stop, right?

[00:20:18] Benjamin: I mean, we've seen a dramatic increase, like what, like a doubling of CO2 production since 2019 because of data data centers, right? I mean, AI itself, which is all the VC investment, right? Is, is going towards basically increasing CO2 production by a huge amount. And CO2 removal is still in such a nascent place when there is also like no, there isn't a solid market for it in the U S right.

[00:20:40] Benjamin: And you can see, you know, when there's players. Yeah, I won't go too deep into that, but but yeah, but it's more, I would say it's much more important in the short term or the next 50 years or more to focus on adapting environments and ecosystems, whether you're doing built environments in cities or adapting wildlife, right?

[00:20:58] Benjamin: To be able to withstand these changes because they're going to come regardless.

[00:21:01] Abigail: Right, right. 

[00:21:03] Abigail: So, so where are you in the, in your business? 

[00:21:06] Benjamin: We basically founded the the company last year where we were focused on really getting our platform technology developed.

[00:21:15] Benjamin: So this is the, the workflow and systems to analyze a microbial isolates from coral samples and select and rapidly identify those beneficial bacteria that we want to use in our CMB. And Now we have we have a number of provisional patents from that both in the, both in the pipeline as well as our delivery system for, for that, those hydrogel particles for delivering the CMB right to coral.

[00:21:40] Benjamin: But now we are focusing on What you could call core clinical trials. So a lot of testing in the laboratory of this heat tolerance CMB where yeah, we want to wrap up kind of a good, a good part of it by the beginning of August. And then still, we'll still be expanding tests and testing different things, but then by that point, we'll be moving into field pilots at the end of the year, as I said, and those are, yeah, those are commercial agreements as well.

[00:22:06] Benjamin: Some of them are still being worked out, so I won't expand on them, like in full detail. Yeah, but they're with one of them in particular is with one of the top multinational hotel chains, and we plan to partner with them to, you know, to work at many of the many of their locations around the world. So that's gonna be a pretty huge kind of media announcement when that, you know, when that all goes through and then by March by March by next year, we want to actually start full on commercial treatments, right?

[00:22:34] Benjamin: With CNBs in the Caribbean and then eventually get to Asia Pacific. 

[00:22:40] Abigail: So I'm really interested in, in your first sponsor slash client being a hotel chain. What is the, what is their mission? Why do they want to restore? Are they worried about coastal resiliency? Or is this to boost tourism because they do tours, you know, around the coral reefs?

[00:22:58] Abigail: What is their interest? 

 It comes from two two big angles, at least how it began. So one is they want to preserve the, like the core weeks. A lot of these hotels are in very tropical places with lots of, you know, coral biodiversity and the losses are real, right? Of the coral and the, in the greater, say, deep.

[00:23:17] Benjamin: Fish and other life that's dependent on them, right? So they want to protect that, but also because they're a tourism company, they want it to be a big, say PR effort as well, right? They want to boost and their kind of image of sustainability and, and protection of marine biodiversity, especially this one brand within within this hotel that we're working with where it's Yeah, they're really focused on the environmental aspect and preserving the ecosystem.

[00:23:45] Benjamin: And that's, that's really important to like, to kind of get in the door as well. But then the next step is then showcasing the tangible, you know, right, exactly. That it will have these tangible you know, these effects and a thing a notable tool that we developed is a integrated modeling where we have integrated where we have combined, we combine both core biodiversity, ocean ocean temperature data, as well as say wave and shoreline protection data where we showcase what is the, The tangible financial impacts of the loss of coal over the next couple of years and even decades, but we can do that at a really high resolution.

[00:24:21] Benjamin: So we can just look at like a single property and map the coral distribution and see what is the loss and how does CMBs prevent that which, you know, no, no one else on the planet has currently developed a tool like that. It's all very high level. Like what is the value of coral on like a national scale with all these different benefits, but it's not useful from a business context.

[00:24:39] Benjamin: Cause like, you know, this is, you know, This is a tool that we explicitly developed to push a customer basically you know, showcasing and teaching, you know, customers this, you know, this this benefit, right. Of this, of the CMB treatment, a lot of players, a lot of people like governments, et cetera, know about the shoreline protection.

[00:24:55] Benjamin: But for some commercial groups, this is something that you know, have to be, has to be brought to the table to educate them on that front. 

[00:25:02] Abigail: Well, I love that, that tangibility that, you know, it's, you know, we're missing that with carbon credits. So many of these these efforts that we're talking about now are pretty elusive.

[00:25:11] Abigail: So it really helps when you have an opportunity to, to showcase you know, a real, Difference over time and and I think that's a I think you're going to get more hotels on board. In nature conservancies I mean and you know, if the tech proves out You know, the world is your coral reef.

. You have you have some like people who really are in like, you know, ecotech space who you know, have a heart like for VCs explicitly, right. People who are just thinking about investments all the time.

[00:25:40] Benjamin: It's hard for them to kind of wrap their mind around the business model, but then there is like a lot of people who do deal with say in climate tech, primarily, right. Almost everybody in climate tech where they see, It's the huge potential, right? And they like obviously the impact, but also just that if it all works, if it all works out in the field, right, in the environment that there's, you know, it'll be an endless amount of customers, especially as time increases and as ocean, you know, these threats become increasingly worse.

[00:26:06] Benjamin: Yeah. 

[00:26:07] Abigail: Yeah. So you mentioned VCs, how, how do you finance something like this? Have you, have you worked with grants? Do you, are you a, did you fundraise? Are you fundraising? 

[00:26:19] Benjamin: So we have raised from a number of different types of investors. We've had could solve call a formation round and a pre-seed round.

[00:26:28] Benjamin: And this has gone into a lot of our technology development, our, you know, building out our team. And we'll have a, a proper yeah, I guess if you expand on the types of investments, those are from from angel checks as well as from. From V. C. As well. And also a grant. Not actually, not actually a direct grant though.

[00:26:44] Benjamin: Yet. We're kind of starting a campaign of grant writing and applying kind of now. But with a grant writer and bringing on the team. So and a grant coordinator. So I'm building a whole kind of small team for that. But with awards that we want. So we've been really successful. I kind of winning competitions.

 But we are opening a formal seed round in August of this year. So that's going to be yeah, open to primarily VC, et cetera. And at that point, we'll complete a number of key milestones, including putting out some published data on our laboratory results, as well as announcing some of those commercial contracts that we have.

[00:27:20] Abigail: You were a top three placement in the S. O. A. Challenge, Sustainable Ocean Alliance Challenge. What does that, how does that impact your company or why do you enter a competition like that? 

[00:27:33] Benjamin: Being in a competition and winning it is really good from an awareness standpoint. So really opening up the audience. Yes. To kind of the other side of the Atlantic, if, you know, if they're on, if they were unaware of us previously and for a lot of other players within the ocean space and beyond to become a boss and this kind of is prepping us up right for that fundraising round that we'll So that's that.

[00:27:56] Benjamin: That's the kind of the core strategy with competing in the challenge. 

[00:27:59] Abigail: Well it was a good competition. There is a, there are a lot of interesting companies, so good for you. And it sounds like it was well merited. So. you're in Brooklyn.

[00:28:10] Abigail: Tell me a little bit about your geography and about the startup scene in Brooklyn. I know there's, there's a lot going on there.

[00:28:16] Benjamin: Yeah, yeah, definitely. So there's a lot of good, say real estate for for bioscience laboratories in Brooklyn. Yeah, a huge amount of things emerging from it, but we are, you know, I would say probably the only Marine biotech company, right?

[00:28:30] Benjamin: So especially so, you know, so involved with, with the, with the ocean, maybe there's some like water testing companies, right? But, but yeah, so we're definitely extremely unique for for the city 

[00:28:41] Abigail: so just out of curiosity, because you know, there are a lot of people, including the billion oyster project, trying to create oyster reefs in, in the New York Harbor. But I read recently an article that was saying they were really having some trouble sort of taking root and, and, and propagating.

[00:28:58] Abigail: Is there, is there ever a possibility that you would find a solution for different types of reefs like oyster reefs or, , muscle beds that also have some of these properties, , they can also help with, , coastal resiliency. 

[00:29:11] Benjamin: Yeah, for different types of organisms, right? Or different types of aquaculture beyond coral.

[00:29:16] Benjamin: Definitely. I mean, this is where a platform technology comes in play where we have We've developed this experimental and computational pipeline where we can very rapidly identify functional microbes, particularly bacteria that can be used as as these treatments as these boosters for health or to combat, you know, other You know, diseases within other species such as fish or mollusks.

[00:29:41] Benjamin: Right. And this kind of ties in play with our, say, longer term, you know, vision for the organization where in terms of in terms of, you know, exiting the company at some point in the future, you know, our, our eyes are on groups such as probiotic multinationals, these, these large conglomerates that are in a lot of different spaces of, of producing Say probiotics for humans, but also, you know, different probiotics solutions for agriculture as well, or, or aquaculture rise.

[00:30:09] Benjamin: So we have, that's kind of one, one of our kind of acquisition pipelines that we're 

[00:30:13] Abigail: working. Very interesting. So well don't exit too soon because it sounds like a lot of fun. in the short term. a lot of a lot of good road trips. 

[00:30:21] Benjamin: Yeah. This, this will be you know, farther down the timeline.

[00:30:24] Benjamin: Yeah. You know, we, we aim to have. We want to be at the point where we have a good global market reach and sustainable you know, annual returning revenue before, you know, we would, and of course we want to make sure that this the partner that would acquire us, assuming everything works out right on the treatment front for coral reefs, that they would, you know, continue to you know, run the company as we would want.

[00:30:46] Benjamin: Right. Cause this is, you know, quite an impactful solution, right? You run in the wrong hands. Right. 

[00:30:52] Abigail: I ask this of everybody who comes on the podcast you know, cause we're all in this race race against the trend here with climate. So are you optimistic about the future and our ability to stay ahead of these changes?

[00:31:04] Benjamin: I say I am. optimistic. But I would say that I was a lot more optimistic initially starting kind of my entrepreneurial journey. You could say my founder journey where, you know, getting into the space, seeing the level of climate tech investment was quite massive. But then, you know, as time goes on, you know, really truly kind of learning where a lot of these deal flows are going towards and types of solutions and even like what is You know, the the effect of these solutions practically have on reversing climate change or CO2 emissions.

[00:31:38] Benjamin: You know, I think there's a lot of kind of very inefficient you know, doing this in the space of funding it with venture capital and doing it in this for profit way, it definitely works for for a number of things. But there's in efficiency. Right. And current to combat these existential crisis.

[00:31:52] Benjamin: These with, you know, where it's sometimes difficult to form a just a really simple business model right around. And as I mentioned with, the rise computation right and computational needs I mean, that producing a lot more CO two. And that's a trend that's just skyrocketing.

[00:32:10] Benjamin: So I would say, yeah, it is terrible. It's not, it's not good. So I am, you know, definitely very disappointed, you know, with, uh, with how, the global market, global market countries are addressing this, you handling it, but I think there's definitely hope, right? There's definitely ways that we can address, you know, with, with innovations and solutions and founders, both, it doesn't have to be for for profit, it can be, you know, founders of nonprofits, right.

[00:32:34] Benjamin: NGOs that equally or maybe even more can address these, these issues head on. So yeah. So there's hope on that front. If you know, good people can put their, your minds to it so that we can you know, have solutions that can make it. 

[00:32:48] Abigail: so do you have any advice for other you know, climate entrepreneurs today?

[00:32:53] Benjamin: Yeah. So of what I would. advise climate entrepreneurs on is really getting a solid foundation in like running and scaling a company like a business like that. Sometime like that can be lacking. And I think a lot of founders in the right in the beginning, there's a lot of company failure, right?

[00:33:15] Benjamin: Of course. And that's And if it's more of a technical company, right, it's due to the founders coming in with very minimal business experience , and not knowing what are the kind of the levers to pull to both reach that you know, investor founder fit to become investable which is really important right in the early days, especially if you're, if you're trying to really scale quickly.

[00:33:35] Benjamin: But also the um, Say that product market fit as well. So knowing how to tweak it and how to approach things that are really strategic and, and are most beneficial to growing a startup and, you know, not running things like an academic lab for one or right. Cause that's a totally different mindset and workflow.

[00:33:52] Benjamin: And then you have to adapt yourself with rapidly creating MVPs and getting something that just works out there, but then keep kind of reaching for that next phase you know, and you really gotta, you know, boots, there's many, you know, I wouldn't necessarily say. financially bootstrap yourself, but bootstrapping it in many different ways, right?

[00:34:10] Benjamin: This could, this could be from so many different angles, right? For building, building your technology to fundraising, to having a team. Like it's better to have a very small group of really devoted and full time individuals and kind of a large team of part time people. So yeah, there's all kinds of, of nuances to learn about running a startup and company that tech founders who want to build a solution that solves climate, climate change need to know first before they, they they kind of approach their solution.

[00:34:38] Abigail: There's a good vibe now in ocean tech. It's growing really fast. It's getting a lot of, a lot of love from the media at the moment. And, and there's a lot of good people in it. So it's if you got to be in a space right now, I think this is a really fun and, and, and hopeful one to be in.

[00:34:54] Benjamin: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I think it's starting from very small. I think there's only room to grow right now. So we'll see where the ceiling is right of, of, of ocean tech and see, see how fast it grows. Right. Cause like, even like a five years ago where there was like, it was almost non existent.

[00:35:07] Benjamin: So it's just very significant trajectory. 

[00:35:10] Abigail: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today I just I think what you're doing is fascinating and and if it can help boost these coral reefs And and create some coastal resiliency and more biodiversity than we're, the planet is definitely gonna be happier for it.

[00:35:27] Benjamin: Yes. Yeah. I hope so too. It all works out for the sake of yeah, for these ecosystems. Yeah. I mean, yeah, we're at a very kind of pivotal point in time where, you know, 

we have to take action now or else it'll be too late. Well, on that note, thanks. Thanks again. Thank you.