Palm oil is extremely harmful to the environment. But there’s a startup who believes that biotechnology can change that.
What’s happening:
- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving a $3.5M USD grant to Y Combinator backed biotechnology startup C16 Biosciences
The big idea:
- C16 Biosciences have developed a proprietary biotechnology platform that is capable of producing fermented palm oil by using yeast and agriculturally derived feedstocks
- C16 Biosciences is able to produce fermented palm oil that has multiple applications for products across beauty, personal care and food
- Because C16 Biosciences doesn’t require any farmland or forestry to produce their palm oil, they are unlocking a significant benefit to the climate by using biotechnology and precision fermentation to disrupt traditional palm oil harvesting
Why it matters:
- Palm oil is the most popular vegetable oil in the entire world and is used in a wide variety of products in cosmetics, food and more
- Palm oil production is closely linked with deforestation of some of the most biodiverse forests in the entire world
- Harvesting palm oil often times results in burning down tropical rainforests and swamps to make way for plantations, which emits enormous amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere
Going deeper:
- Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Y Combinator and DCVC were amongst some of the early notable investors to back C16 Biosciences
By the numbers:
- C16 Biosciences has raised $36M USD in venture capital funding since inception
- Prior to the Gates Foundation Grant, C16 Biosciences had already received $2M USD in grant funding from the United States Department of Energy and Agile BioFoundry
