Paul Shapiro: [00:00:00] Axel, welcome to the business for good podcast. Hey, Paul. Hey, I am so glad to be talking to you. Greetings from California to Mexico. Where in Mexico are you right now?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Likewise we're located in central Mexico state called Guanajuato. And that's where we're based.

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. Well, we're gonna get into why you're based there and all of that, but I'm so eager to hear, I just have to ask, you know, you started this company nine years ago with your brother, what's the inspiration for you?

Like, why were you thinking that you wanted to do something that would replace leather or have new materials? Like what happened nine years ago that you're thinking in Mexico, I think I need to do something about leather.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yeah, I'm going to step back a little and go to give a little context. So the story actually begins at least the way I see it three generations ago with my grandfather, who was the, he was an engineer and was the first generation of leather.

People who attended Tecnologico de Monterrey, which is one of the most, or the most important private school in Mexico for engineers [00:01:00] in Northern Mexico, Monterrey. And with that, then my father also was a biochemical engineer, and then I'm a biotech engineer from that school. So I think that's, that's how, how it started.

Also, I was me and my brothers were very lucky to grow up in a, in a family which my father was a serial entrepreneur back in the eighties when we were Entrepreneurs weren't a thing and VC didn't existed basically. And and he actually built computers here in central Mexico and bought the software from no other than Bill Gates a long time ago, the MS DOS before windows even, so it's a cool story.

So I think that that's how it started. And then. I, since I was very young, I also was surrounded by nature, as you can imagine, Mexico being the fourth most biodiverse country on the planet. And so I, I, I know since I was very young, I foresaw that biotech was going to be crucial and also foresaw the problem that climate change was going to impose in our generation.

And since I was young, I thought that I wanted to do A startup of course, and I wanted to be a biotech startup. So when I was starting in the last year [00:02:00] of my bachelor in biotech engineer, I went to MIT for iGEM, which is a synthetic biology competition held at, well, it used to be held at MIT. Now they changed the venue, but it's like a competition between universities where they basically propose projects that solve industrial problems using biotechnology or synthetic biology.

Genetic engineering. And while I was attending there, I was sitting in listening to Cornell's team project. And they were actually working with e which you might know from mycelium technology. Back in the day. This was, this was 2013, so it was very young company in e It wasn't very well known either.

Mycelium materials were, were not, and so that coincided with the fact that I was talking to Alexis, who is my brother, my co founder, and we were talking like, we want to do this, like a biomaterial company. We were exploring different biomaterials, like kiting from, from like see like crab shells and, and insect shells.

Exoskeletons or, and [00:03:00] also my ceiling, we had read about like an article about the very early ecovative material. And we thought it was great, but then this coincided with the fact that I was sitting there and they passed around a little piece of material mycelium material from ecovative. And as long as, as I touch these materials, I said, like, I This is what I need to do.

Like, this is going to be something very interesting for, for humans. Right. So so I came back, I graduated from, from the, the engineering, and then I came back to central Mexico where we were actually born and Alexis and myself decided to, to build this, this company with our co founder Barbara, who is she's a material science PhD.

She's she has a lot of experience like 40 or 50 years in academia and industry. And. Back then we, we started the company with a grant from the government, from Guanajuato government, the state government gave us a very small grant, nothing compared to what they give in the U S, but with that we, we kicked off, kicked off the kickstarted the company.

And that's, that's how it started. As I, as I told you, we first started with mycelium actually, and [00:04:00] then we shifted to leather because we foresaw a lot of problems with mycelium that I can get deeper into if you like.

Paul Shapiro: I definitely would like to get into that. But first I would have mentioned, yeah, you mentioned your grandfather was in Monterey, which is where my wife's family originates also.

And so I, I'm, I'm very eager to go there and, and, and see this to see, to see Monterey, but,

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: It's a beautiful city and it's where supposedly Elon Musk announced like a Tesla, you got factory there because there's a good engineers. It's a good city, good people. Environment. So, yeah.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. Okay.

Very cool. Well, hopefully I'll, I'll get to go there. So we actually had Eben from Ecovative on the show before we will link to the show notes of that episode. So people want to go listen to that back. I said, but that fact episode, you'll be able to see it at business for good podcast. com. But he has been very inspirational to so many people to getting involved in mycelium including myself in many respects.

And I'm eager to hear about why you went into and then went out of that. But first let's just get into. The company, because you, you're talking to your [00:05:00] brother, you're thinking that you want to start something. What was the, you know, you mentioned that you had an environmental sensitivity, right? You're worried about climate change, worried about other things relating to the planet.

Did you have some animal welfare concern? Like why weather? What was the reason that you were thinking you wanted to displace this one product?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: That, that, that was part of it. Certainly As I told you, I was also very lucky that I found my vocation since I was very young. I've been a biologist since I was born, to be honest, because I didn't know it was called biology.

But when I was a kid, I'm telling like three or four years old, I used to like reproduce or cultivate insects like beetles. I used to like feed them and have them in like big, like Tanks, like fish tanks and all sorts of insects. I reproduce ants, beetles, and I had like a mini laboratory. Also, I was very lucky because my mother is a chemist.

So my father, a biochemist, my mother, a chemist. So I grew up surrounded between like talks about technology and about like chemistry. And I, I played in my mom's, my mom owns a [00:06:00] laboratory, like a clinical testing, like blood testing on this kind of laboratory. So we, we used to play around with test tubes and syringes in when we were like kids.

So I think this definitely contributed to, to that. Of course, the animal welfare aspect since being a biologist also I had all sorts of pets you can imagine, like, like anywhere from like beetles, parrots chickens, cats, dogs, of course a lot of different Pets and, and these was an important factor, I think, for the doing leather, something that is more than competing with animal leather.

We want to do with cellium is a new class of material. Let's say a new category, the future of materials for humanity in all sorts. This one is leather. But also cellulose is a very interesting material Paul, because cellulose is the most abundant biopolymer on the planet. And we think that there is a reason for it.

Like we think that. Mother nature is very intelligent and, and wise. And there's a reason why she chooses these scaffolds for making all her creations, [00:07:00] which you can see they're in a jungle or a desert, everything you look around that is a plant is made of cellulose and it can be very versatile. For example, you can go into a forest or a jungle and, and.

The bark of a tree, which is very strong is cellulose with lignin, lignocellulose wood. But then if you combine cellulose with, let's say pectin, you get something very hard, like the husk of a seed or the spiking an agave or a cactus, which is very strong and can penetrate the material. Or also you can combine cellulose with, let's say a flavonoid or a color molecule to make a petal of a flower, which is very sorrel, has color, smell, is very soft.

So that's why we think that cellulose will be one of the key biological. Material commodities of the future.

Paul Shapiro: What was it that led you then to think we can grow cellulose via some type of like a microbial fermentation, right? So the idea behind this is essentially taking industrial fruit waste and feeding it to certain microbes that are going to produce cellulose.

So what was the idea for actually making [00:08:00] that the reality?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yeah. So I don't know if you're familiar, but the first to actually propose making leather from bacterial cellulose is Suzanne Lee, who is a great friend of us now, also Evan is a great friend and Gavin, we, we know them personally, they're good guys.

And so I

Paul Shapiro: think Suzanne Lee was at Modern Meadow.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Exactly. She, she, she was part of at some point, but before that even, she proposed like the bio couture thing like 20 years ago, making letter with bacterial cell. And she was the first to actually propose that. And when we started with mycelium and we knew already about this project from Suzanne and we started to play with bacterial cell, we foresaw that has a lot of potential and we thought that we could give it a try and, and be the first at, at, at that.

And and that's why we, we shifted from mycelium to, to sellers among other things that. I'll get it deeper into later. But so yeah, I think that the reason is because it holds a lot of, a lot of potential and leather is just the first material that we can, let's say supply or, or, or leather like textile.

But then, as I told you, cellulose is [00:09:00] such a versatile material that there's so many potentials. applications already proven either in literature or in actual materials that can be bought already, like cellulose. Bacterial cells can be used to make threads, to make cosmetic vehicles, like powders for cosmetics, or even skin care and products.

It can be used to, to make Grafting for, for skin grafts or for like wound care or even growing organs onto, or, or tissue engineering onto a cell, it's a great scaffold for any kind of, of cell actually.

Paul Shapiro: When you began growing mycelium, were you doing solid state fermentation or were you using bioreactors?

Solid, solid state. Right. And what was the reason to abandon mycelium to go to go to another form?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yeah. So there were many factors. I'll let's say travel back in time a little. This was like, we started 2014, 2015, and we did mycelium for, let's say three to four years when we started doing in parallel cell loss and we'll, while working on both, we foresaw like three main [00:10:00] problems in, in mycelium.

One at that. Time we were like, let's say the, the fourth company doing my ceiling. It was already. Ecovative microworks already existed. Also. I think both threads have already pivoted to, to, to my ceiling. I don't remember exactly, but there were three or four players already. And so we, we foresaw that my ceiling was going to get crowded in terms of start trying to do it.

Even though we were the first in Latin America and everything, but we, we foresaw that, then we said at bacterial cells, we can be the first because nobody Has actually tried to tackle that. So some proposal, but nobody actually deployed an industrial operation for that. And so that was the first one, like being first, the second was my ceiling has some technical difficulties, either it's liquid or solid as, as you mentioned, I can talk about the solid.

Fermentation, because I have experience in that. And is that it's as you know, it's like particles crushed particles of hay or straw that have to be transported into the malls and all this and this is a very challenging [00:11:00] in terms of the the machinery and the engineering has to be made almost custom made all the machinery all the The conveyors, the lines, because it has to be hepa, filter, suction, vacuum.

All the systems are very expensive and has to be custom made compared to a liquid fermentation in bacterial cell, which is you use off the shelf equipment like fermentor for beer or for wine and, and pumps that move liquid. So in, in that sense, in the scaling, it's, it's faster, cheaper, easier. And the other one, it's more related to the last one, the biology of, of the cell.

So mycelium, as you know. It's more related to us than, than bacteria because it's a complex cells a eary compared to, to like very simple prokaryotic cells like, like aria or bacteria. And if you thi you see the history of our planet, actually, this can be called the planet of bacteria because they, they have lived out, outlive those four millions and millions of years.

Like 80% of of the time that there's life in this planet that is the planet's four point. [00:12:00] 4, 500 million years old. And then 80 percent of, of that life existed and, and. all that 80 percent of the time was bacteria. And just recently like complex cells multicellular life arose and that includes plants, mycelium and us.

And so in that regard, you understand the biology of the cell the mycelium or the fungal cell is very complex. First it has a very tough cell wall, which makes it very complicated to do genetic engineering. That's why there is one of the least studied Organisms or kingdoms for genetic engineering fungi, because it's very hard to, to actually get DNA material inside.

And then the other one is that it's slower the cell division time, it's way slower compared to bacteria. And this makes it prone to contamination. Which again affects yield scaling costs and, and, and I think that all that sums up why we, we, which pivot from mycelium to cellulose.

Paul Shapiro: That's really interesting.

I didn't realize that it didn't need as much sterility as let's say, like a mycelial fermentation that can [00:13:00] be done in like regular beer brewery equipment, which is less sterile than what you need for the type of equipment you need to grow mycelium. That's really interesting. Why the idea of using fruit waste?

What type of fruit? Waste, are you utilizing, like, how did that come to be? Because most of these types of fermentations, they're just being run on, you know, pure sugar, right? They're being run on glucose, glucose.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: That is a great, a great story. So I think that in that one, we could say that we were not the first to propose it because people were growing Nata de Cocoa in Southeast Asia from coconut water.

A long time ago, but we were the first in the biomaterial startup space to propose making it circular, like everybody else before us was like growing, if it was bacterial cell, it was from sugarcane. If it was mycelium was hay or straw, that is not, not food waste is more like a by product. And so we were the first to, to force that.

And the reason is that the geography where we're located, as I told you, this has been an agro industrial hub for. Thousands of years, like before the Spanish, like this fed Mesoamerica, like this [00:14:00] is the richest soil in Mesoamerica because it's, it's like a high altitude plane where 1, 700 meters. And it's a very long, long plane that encompasses four or five States in central Mexico.

And it's a very rich soil because it comes from volcanic eruptions. For thousands of years accumulated and there's a clay layer that is very nutrient rich. And so this allows for a lot of agriculture. And in that sense, humans are very wasteful when we do agriculture everywhere. So to give you a little number you might know one third of the food we grow globally goes to the trash, but then fruits are even worse because 50 to 60 percent of the fruits we grow go to the trash.

And the problem is that they get to a trash even before the point of sale, like in the supply chains that were the big mass of, of fruit is discarded mainly because it's, it's it's a material that has very short shelf life. If you don't process it quickly, it rottens and you have to throw it away.

And so we foresaw that we were surrounded by these companies that [00:15:00] that package food in central Mexico, that they call these Also, it's an agricultural area, but it's an agro industrial area, meaning there's like plants that process the food and package it and ship it to California, to New York, to Europe, to Asia.

And they call it the refrigerator of Mexico because it's a most conglomeration of, of like freezing operations and packaging operations that get frozen and sent frozen all the way to, to the supply chain, all the way to the supermarkets, wherever they're in the world. And so even though the fruit is not produced here, it's produced in the coast of Mexico, it gets here and gets frozen.

And it gets processed here. And here is where the waste is, is, is produced like huge, huge amounts of, of waste just to give you a, like an idea, one of our partners that there's like three hundreds of these, these companies, these are multinational companies, they're not even Mexican. Like the one we work with has 80 plants, like eight, zero plants all over the planet.

It has two in Mexico. This is one of them. And they process like huge, huge amounts of, they throw like 300 Like this is like [00:16:00] our operation for a year. Like so so we, we saw these ways and all these potential, like we, instead of seeing waste, we see like like gold, basically gold going to the trash because it's sugar, you know, like, and me as a biotechnologist, I was approached by one of, of these guys that they told me like, I throw away all these ways, can you do something with it?

And he gave me a sample and I froze it and I left it in a freezer, like for three or four years. while I was doing the mycelium. And when I started doing the bacteria, so that I remember, and I was like, I have that sample frozen there. I can like check it out. And I tried growing it from waste and it was not, not a straightforward thing in the beginning.

It's very complex to do it from only waste. Because as you know it doesn't have the form of sugar that you require and all that. So we have to do a little engineering. We actually developed two proprietary, let's say processes. One is to. We can actually store the waste at room temperature up to 40 Celsius that gets here for two years.

And it doesn't lose [00:17:00] power. It doesn't affect the process. And this was a process and a formula that we basically invented to do that.

Paul Shapiro: Let me ask you is that that seems incredible that you can store fruit at 40 Celsius, which is over 100 Fahrenheit for years without it degrading. So presumably you're removing all the oxygen from this whatever vessel it's in and that's how you do it.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: It's a combination of both the process and, and the formula. And so this enables us to, to do that, which, yeah, it's sounds very fascinating and it's, it's great because imagine frozen freezing, all these materials is very expensive. Well So what do you,

Paul Shapiro: what do you have to do then, Axel, to, you know, you've got your, your food waste to this fruit, but as you mentioned, it's not in the type of sugar that's going to make it so easily accessible and an efficient way to all of your bacteria.

So is there an alpha amylase treatment? Is there some homogenization or is there some type of way that you're breaking it down to make it easier for the bacteria to consume first? [00:18:00] And if so, how does that affect the economics? You, you know, you're putting in some cost To manipulate these fruits before they go into the system.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yeah. So before I answer that, I would like to say that one of the things that is a very important value at Polyvion is that resourcefulness. We believe in doing more with less in every respect. And in, in that sense is also taking inspiration from nature because nature does. A lot with just what it requires.

Like it never uses more than it needs. It does more with less. And that's what we, we strive for. And that's why every process that we design and execute in Polyvion, the first thing we have in mind is efficiency and resourcefulness. Like we will not do anything extra that is not needed. No over engineering.

And so with that in mind, we designed this process that as I told you, allows It's, it's both it's a combination of, of the factors that you mentioned. So we have to [00:19:00] stabilize the material, the waste we do some treatment, but it's not an expensive treatment, let's say, and this allows us to be. Like if, if I were to share with you the price economics of our, or the cost economics of our process, you would be amazed.

It's a very efficient process in terms of cost because of two factors. One is that we, we always work with biology, not, not against it. Like we let biology do its thing. It's, it's the greatest technology that exists. We're just starting to understand how to use it. And that's the one thing. And the other is of course, the location, the geography where we're based, abundance of waste, great Qualified and, and compromised labor that is Mexicans have, I don't know if you knew this, but if you compare Mexican labor to Chinese labor, we actually surpass them now in terms of skillful with hands and, and cost, of course, like we're.

Per dollar, we are better than the Chinese now. So, so it's a, it's a great geography to do biofabrication and that's what we figured. And that's why we, [00:20:00] we are still here

Paul Shapiro: on his amazing. And it is the fruit waste free or these companies cause they have to dispose of it anyway. So do they just probably buy on, get this waste to the feedstock for free?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Great point. So the thing with the waste, it's a huge problem. We're just solving a huge thing just by using it. And, and the problem is that these guys actually pay. To get the waste out. Because imagine like if you have a. Mango packaging facility that processes 300 tons per week or even more. These guys have a problem with the waste.

They, they need to take it out every day. They, they discard like two, six cubic meter trucks per day. of waste, just to waste. And they have to take it out every like six hours or four hours, because otherwise the operation stops. Like they need to take out the waste. So they pay for companies, basically landfill operators to take the waste to the landfill.

And the bad thing, or the good thing for us is that. These ways cannot [00:21:00] be used in any other way. It's not like hay or straw that you can feed to the cows. If you feed this to the cows, they die. They basically burst because there's so much sugar in their stomachs that they die. So you cannot feed this to any animal.

You cannot compost it because in Mexico, there's several composting facilities, industrial composting. There is none here. And the only way is either landfill, which is a, a bad because general is methane, but it's better than the other. They actually burn it sometimes because if there's so much, they make piles and they burn it because there's no other thing to do.

So that's the great thing about the process. We basically invented or the supply chain, which is take these ways that is ways for some people and make it into gold, like Midas used to do King Midas. So by doing this, we're, we're solving different problems. One is we. We're solving the waste for our partners that they throw away the waste.

And we sometimes, as I told you, get paid to get it out as it was a waste disposal service. And this also has benefits for LCA for the way you can register your company and your operation as an actual [00:22:00] landfill or waste management facility that helps with a lot of incentives from the government. But that's only like the 10 percent of the process.

We haven't even get into the facility and we're already solving all these problems for, for these guys.

Paul Shapiro: That's really impressive axle. It's really impressive. Let's talk about quickly the process. So you're feeding the fruit waste to the bacteria and making this product that is a weather like product.

We're gonna talk about how long does it take? And then what is this product? So it's not you're saying it's not a perfect mimicry of leather, but that it's a new type of material that might be able to replace leather. So how long does it take? How long are these bacteria consuming fruit before they turn into psyllium?

And what is the psyllium good for?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: So the process starts with the, we call it waste carbon because that's what it is. It's carbon in the end. And people see it as waste. It becomes methane in a landfill, but you can use the carbon in a, put it into this system and then it gets captured into the cellulose that you can see here, the raw [00:23:00] cellulose.

So the process to get the cellulose takes anywhere from five to 10 days, depending on the thickness we want. This already, it's a huge improvement in the beginning, when we started to give you an idea. Three years ago when we started operating the folk for the first of a kind, the facility we have is the first by your manufacturing facility for but yourselves textiles on the planet at this scale that uses waste.

And when we started the process was 15 to 30 days, depending if it's high thickness or low thickness. We have to, let's say thickness of the, of the material that we produce, but now it's five to 10. So this tells you about them probably say like the improvement that we'd be able to. To pull off. And this has to do with both the process genetic engineering that can get deeper into that we're already doing.

And so five to 10 days, depending if it's thin or thick leather and it's waste, as you can imagine, it's like a, like a, like a slurry of mango waste. Basically there's sugar contained in there. We, we do the process that I told you is proprietary. We [00:24:00] basically make it bioavailable. For the bacteria and make a huge like soup of, of food for bacteria.

Let's say convert the waste into food for bacteria. This is done in a reactor that we have a conventional stainless steel. Right now it's three, 3000 liter. It's a batched process. It's a, let's say we can make 3000 liters per day or even 6, 000 if you want. And and so we, we convert the waste to this like a liquid medium.

And it's a proprietary formula. And then the magic there is using only waste because you could use a little sugar and that's not great for the LCA, but the, the problem, like the difficulty and the great thing when you solve it, it's only waste. It took us like four years to develop the process and the formula.

After that, we pumped this into like a rack. It's a vertical system, very similar to ecobatives or indoor farming systems. As you might see the systems for biofabrication, it grows, we harvest it and we get this, which is the raw. You can see it's like a piece of, like a piece of meat that you, you've seen like the kombucha kind of [00:25:00] thing.

And, and yeah, that's, that's the first part of the process.

Paul Shapiro: Amazing. So yeah, for folks who are listening, so Axel was just showing a piece of the psyllium, like a, it looks like a, maybe like half of a square meter of it or so. And the question I have is about the material itself. So you, you've created this cellulosic material that, Can be used as a weather alternative.

Is that your main goal to replace leather on shoes and car seats and bags and wallets and belts, or is there something else also that you're thinking about doing with this?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: That's just the first step. I would say leather the most obvious the first to market because we've been doing it for so long.

But no, we're thinking about a plethora of markets and applications. Just to give you a few that these, you can like go lemon. There's a lot of proof of concept in literature and in academia and in other places we want to actually tackle several markets as we scale and we get to price parity with increment [00:26:00] commodities. The, the obvious next one will be like cosmetics. You can use this raw bacteria cells for a cosmetic like wound care material. You can make it into powder for, for powder cosmetics, vehicles for like a cream. It's a great vehicle for active ingredients in cosmetics because he has a lot of. Since it's at the nanoscale, the thread, it's a great vehicle to get the products into the skin or into the wound if it's a wound care product, a clinical product.

Of course, we can also make this with this a thread and with the thread you can make either clinical suture like for for stitching or actual floats like with any thread or to make the leather backs with them. Not only the bacterial cellulose leather, but the thread too. Confection or, or to create the products and others in the future, like more, more long term, like in 10 years, when these reaches a price priority with a commodity we can make paper and pull products like paper, cardboard, even growing woods eventually because it's lignocellulose if you think of it.

So, so yeah, we're thinking about a lot of industries. [00:27:00] Incredible.

Paul Shapiro: Axel, how much money have you all raised so far for the company?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Around six 6 million since we started.

Paul Shapiro: And how has it been raising in Mexico? You mentioned earlier, you know, you were talking about it in the 1980s and there was no entrepreneurialism or venture capital activity in Mexico, but presumably that is not the case today.

So are you primarily raising from Mexican VCs from American VCs, European, Asian, like where's the money for pipe land coming from?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: So we closed the series around with a Swiss fund, a Zurich based fund called blue horizon. So the money is from, from Switzerland. That was a, the series A before we're only angel investors from Mexico.

So the thing with VC in markets or, or industry in Mexico is that it's very young. Like it's. Honestly, it doesn't exist only for specific trending things like FinTech was before now AI, but honestly, the VCs in Mexico only follow whatever VCs in Europe or the U. S. do. And they're very small, of course, in terms of the capital that they have [00:28:00] available.

And that was bad in the beginning, but it was also good because it was very difficult for us to get funding. Yeah. from VCs. So we lived off of grants and awards, international awards. We won a lot of awards, one from MIT, from Mass Challenge, a lot of different awards. And of course, government grants, we've got federal.

Mexican government grants. And this was hard in the beginning because you don't get as much money and you have to do all the administration of the, of the, of the money and it gets complex, but also it was great in retrospective because it allowed us to own 70 percent of the stock of the company to today, like we owned 90 before the series.

So we,

Paul Shapiro: meaning the co founders.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yeah, I'm the co founders, me and my brother.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, that's great. And how many employees are there?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Right now we're 30, 30 people. That's amazing.

Paul Shapiro: You know, it's a, it's a really incredible because 6 million dollars of course is a lot of money, but for any, when you think about these biotech startups, it's very [00:29:00] Yeah, it's like So, right.

Right, exactly. And so when you get to, if you're looking at American startups that have raised 6 million, the idea that they would have 30 employees seems pretty far fetched, right? Especially if we're doing biotech, because there's a lot of important CapEx that needs to be done. And I presume that is because things are much cheaper to do in Mexico.

Is that right?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Not only that, we're very resourceful. As I told you, we're very smart in how we use the money. Like Yeah, we're very cautious. We're very smart. We take it step by step by step. We don't over promise and under deliver the country. We, we under promise and always over deliver. We promise we'll build a facility in three years.

We build it in one and we've been operating it for two. So, so it's a combination of everything. It's like, if you think about like Twitter or what now is X, the limitation makes creativity. Like if you're limited to a number of characters, you get creative. How you write, right? So, so this is the same. We have too much abundance.

You get lazy and you start the, like, you don't use that much the brain to like, how can I make this [00:30:00] have the money? Like, you know, like

Paul Shapiro: I have, I have heard and talked about many times that a lot of these companies that raise these mega rounds are not always the ones that succeed because they are so fat, so to speak, that they get they get a little bit content, you know, they get So you launched in 2024 with Celium on the market.

Before we get to who these first customers are, it's bacterial, not my Celium. So why is it called Celium?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yeah, because cellulose, it's a great question and we sometimes get it. The, the word mycelium actually comes from cellulose because back when the When they discovered mycelium for the first time within microscope biologists thought it was like a mycocellulose because that's what it looked like, like a cellulose from mycoorganism.

So that's why it was called mycelium. Oh, what

Paul Shapiro: an interesting, what an interesting piece of historical trivia. Mycocellulose. Okay. Okay, well, that blows my mind hearing that

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: from cellulose and you or the [00:31:00] terminology that the suffix from Latin describing an element or an entity like that, like any element in the periodic chart and that's where, yeah,

Paul Shapiro: okay maybe the one day there'll be like a poly by easy or something for some material that you guys create, that'll be the next thing on the, on the periodic table.

I usually don't tell periodic table jokes, but I feel like I'm out of my element doing it. Okay. So who are the first customers for Celium? You've launched in 2024, you have this factory, you've actually commercialized a product. Who, who's buying this stuff?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: So our, the first let's say commercial and the only one that's public and now it's Ghani.

This is a Danish brand from, from Denmark owned by, by Nicola Roofstrop and Andite Roofstrop. Great guys, also it's their, their partners in, in that startup LLBMH bought the Gani like five years ago or 50 percent of it. So it's a, an upcoming brand in the fashion world. It started like a small brand is being growing.

It [00:32:00] was one of the fastest growing brands for, for fashion in the planet, and they're very brave. They operate like a tech company and it's the only. Fashion brand that operates like that, that we know of. So very fast. They're very brave that they, they, they believe in, in the Jeff Bezos ethos of move fast and break things.

And we believe that too. So that's why we've been growing, working with them. They're great. And we launched a couple of products now, like released a jacket and a blue bag, which is their signature bag models. And, and yeah, the next year you can buy them off the shelf, which is a great thing.

Paul Shapiro: How can somebody get a Celium jacket now, right?

So they're selling Celium jackets. If somebody wants to be in the coolest new fashion, they want Celium jackets. Where are they going?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: So first you should go to Paris in October for the Paris fashion week. And you will see a lot of products that will be announced at the, that event is, is going to be a, a gala, a very interesting proposal from Gany.

There's a lot of things prepared that are boiling. I cannot say anything yet, but [00:33:00] you can see it in October in Paris. And after that you can buy them next year because they will announce the collection for next year with this runway. And, and that's how you can get them next year. You can buy them in Ghani stores.

And this would be if this is confirmed and it's announced and everything, then it will be the first biofabricated leather product. On the planet because all of the others are just announced and there's no, like, you're going to buy anything like you're going to buy one of my Michael material. Yeah,

Paul Shapiro: yeah, this has been a real pain point for me because you have companies, let's say, like modern meadow, which have existed for well over a decade and to my knowledge are still pre revenue.

And I think they were starting even 2009. If my memory is correct, and bolt threads essentially abandoned that work to my knowledge. I think they're focused on on the spider silk again. Michael works has this factory in South Carolina. I don't know if they're selling from it yet. [00:34:00] And so Not yet.

Okay. So a lot of these companies, you know, that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars are still pre revenue. So it's a, a testament to what you're doing with 6 million that you'll be on the market. So fingers crossed that you get to be the first on the market. We'll see if, if somebody comes out before you, but so I live in Sacramento where there's, you know, 40 C is like our normal fair.

So having a jacket is not as important for me, but if there's a celium belt or something like that, I hope one day to be wearing that.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yeah. Well, I usually go also to Berkeley. My big brother, older brother gives, lives there in Berkeley. So we usually go two, three times a year. So next time I'll, I'll go to Sacramento and say, hi.

Okay. I will be honored. Yes. Looking back to, to your point is that the reason why you see all these cases of money not well spent, let's say. There's two possibilities. Either they made a bonfire with the money or they didn't spend it. Well, I'm going to give you my perspective, which is that there's a great quote from Carlos Slim.

[00:35:00] Carlos Slim is a richest man in Latin America and the richest in Mexico too. He says that an engineer is one who makes something with one peso. Whereas the non engineer makes it with two pesos. So what it means is that basically that's, that's what the engineer, like, that's what engineers should do.

You know, like, that's your thing, like make it cheaper, make it faster, make it better. And that's what I see missing in a lot of these startups in this space. They're lacking engineers, honestly, not, not incubated. That's not the case that those are great engineers. And I admire these guys. They're the, actually the first to scale mycelium.

And so. The, I think this is one of the key things I see over and over again, in these startups, that there is no, no engineers and no biologists, like many of the startups were founded by designers, which is great. They have great perspective and great ideas, but then you have to actually need hard science to know if the idea actually makes sense or it's breaks their loss of physics, you know?

Like, so I see this happening again and again. I think that's one of the things [00:36:00] why. Polyvion has been able to do what it has done with so, so little resources.

Paul Shapiro: It's definitely impressive how much you've done with so few resources and time will tell whether they have not spent their money well or not.

You know, these other companies haven't gone under yet, right? So they they, they may end up having big jackpots at the end of this.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: We hope. We hope that, like we'll do, like there's room for everyone and everyone every time an a startup of this goes on, that happens like I think twice now. It's bad for everybody.

Like

Paul Shapiro: yeah, for sure.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: And yeah, it's bad for everyone. We hope everybody goes, goes great. Like, honestly.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, for sure. You know, my view of this is first of all, it's horrible for the entire ecosystem when somebody fails because it is it depresses interest in the V. C. community for this space. It's bad because there is a mission that didn't get fulfilled to try to help the planet in that particular case.

And you know, it's bad for the individuals who are involved in it's really terrible. They had employees and investors and so on who lost out. So for sure. And there's more of these closures that are happening now and bankruptcies [00:37:00] that are happening that are, are very distressing. And hopefully from the ashes of this winter that has been going on in the like biotech.

Both materials and food space. There'll there'll be some Phoenix's that rise and do very well toward that end axle. Let me ask you if there are companies that you think somebody else should be starting. So obviously you're focused on making COEM right now, but I presume as a biologist since birth, now you've been a biologist for several decades.

Is there something that you wish that somebody else would do that could have some positive impact in the world that you don't see happening? Yeah.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: I am very happy about the future. Very positive. I think as you mentioned these, let's say clans of it's a bowl. Like it happened with the. com era. The ones who survive will make great things for humanity.

I think it's needed for the planet and more for the blend than for humans. Like the planet will be okay. If we, uh, make mistakes in our civilization, we will perish, but the planet will [00:38:00] be fine. So one, like that's why I think I'm very happy with the future. And I think. Biology is such a great technology.

As I told you, we just started, like, we think we understand DNA, but we don't understand DNA. Like we've been playing with it for 40, 50 years since Creek discovered or predicted the double helix. But honestly, we don't know exactly what DNA is. Like 98 percent is, doesn't code for anything. I don't think so.

Like so that's why I'm very happy about the future because I think the new I see every time like I participate in events and they invite me as like a judge for like accelerators and things and I see that the new generation is more like their understanding that they need to get into biology, you know, like this is the thing we need to do as a species to You It's the next wave of technology, I think, and combining it with, with, of course, AI and humanoids, that will be like something very crazy.

So I'm very happy about, about the [00:39:00] future and is the, and I think there's so many things that we need to fix at once if we want to make it a fast enough for, for 2030 or, or, or to say of 2050, let's say to, to save us from ourselves. That I think that these new generations will solve any, everything. And I'm telling about we need to solve materials.

Of course, leather is just as tiny, tiny material, like concrete steel. We need to solve logistics. We need to solve energy. We need to solve like so many challenges for the civilization to, to keep existing at, at this quality of life or, or higher without continuing to destruct and to emit carbon, that I think that the only solution.

Biology, but also I'm very. Eager that these new generations will create the technologies and the startups and the organizations required to to deploy biology worldwide, let's say

Paul Shapiro: for sure. Yeah, I share your optimism on that for harnessing technology, especially biology to try to. Create a [00:40:00] better a better future.

I do worry like I agree with you that even if human civilization perishes, the planet will go on. But, you know, in the process, we're taking out enormous numbers of other species who are going extinct. And so you know, there will be other species that rise in the future, but it does seem like quite a shame that You know, the problem is that humanity has created, don't just affect humanity.

They are affecting thousands of other species as well.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yeah. We're very selfish in that regard. That's the only way I could describe it. Yeah, that's happened before, as you know, like there's been mass extinctions before and yeah, it all creates new niches that will be filled with new evolutionary.

Creations, but yeah, it's a, it's a pity to lose, right? Yeah,

Paul Shapiro: it is, especially like, you know, if it feels different to me, like if an asteroid creates a mass extinction it feels different to me when one animal on the planet is the new asteroid, you know, like when humans activity like in, and it's, it's, you know, the dinosaurs didn't have a space program.

There's no way for them to deflect the asteroid, [00:41:00] whereas we know what we need to do. Like we know that we need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, off of animal based agriculture. Like these are the things that we can do to prevent us from creating that mass level extinction stuff that's already underway.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: It's a challenge to people because I've been trying to do it since I was a kid, but the thing with this is, or at least my understanding until now, or my conclusion at this Period in my life is that the, the, the reason why it's so hard to do it is because people do not see it immediately. The consequence, like it's not like if you get hit, you get hurt, like it hurts.

But if you like emit carbon, you don't see it until next generation, you will not see it. Like that's why it's so hard to make a change in your in your behavior, because basically you do not see the consequences of your action in terms of climate or killing extinct animals. Like you you don't see it.

So that's why. It's so hard.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, indeed. Indeed. And especially even if you did see it, the consequences are born by a lot of these other animals who are not in our [00:42:00] immediate consciousness anyway. With that said are there resources axle that you think that have been useful for you that you'd recommend for others?

Any books or other resources that you hope somebody else might benefit from?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yeah, before I would like to also add to your previous question, which is what, what other startups, I honestly don't have a lack of ideas. I have a lack of execution. Like there's just so much execution. You can do ideas. I have like a list, like I don't have enough to make so much startups, but one that is very important, I think is plastics.

Like we need to solve for plastics and it's important to understand that plastics are very diverse. Group of material, like it's not polypropylene is very different for, for, from high density polyethylene. Like every plastic is a, is a different universe, a whole new material. That's why plastic saying plastic is a, is a very like confusing term because you should say like very different materials.

Like one for making plastic bags is completely different from making hard plastics, from making [00:43:00] thermal fixed plastics, like, and this, that's why it needs to be approached in this like. Per case scenario in terms of the biological design for the material. And if we do that, we like, this is a part we need to solve like plastic because plastics are great, man.

Like for imagine all the clinical material, the syringes, all these materials are sterile, like there's no other ways to do it without plastic. Like there's so many applications that are great for. Lastly, so we need to solve these these two very fast.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, for sure. One of the things that I have thought a lot about is even if we stopped making plastic today, there's still so much plastic in the world that won't degrade for centuries.

Presumably that ways to degrade plastic. Would be extremely helpful. And there are many different fungi species that are, that are happy to consume plastic. And as a result, you know, I've, I've felt like, why doesn't somebody like whatever enzyme fungi are extreme or excreting to digest plastic? Maybe we could synthesize that, right?

Maybe there's a way to actually, you know, mass [00:44:00] produce that enzyme and create something. And it's kind of like carbon in the sense that even if we stopped emitting it. CO2 and methane today. There's so much in the atmosphere that we have to remove it. Like we have to remove it in the same as with plastic.

Like we need to get rid of this plastic. So I hope somebody will start a company on plastic degradation. So it'd be great to create new plastics that are more environmentally friendly than the current generation. But what an amazing thing that would be to have a, a fungal degradation for a fungal plastic degradation factory.

Wouldn't that be a great

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: thing? The paper came out like. Last week or two weeks ago about, about that, basically the mushroom that can degrade has enzymes. Before Japanese had discovered this bacteria that lived in, in the landfill that also eat plastic. The problem is the efficiency at which you need to do it.

So that it makes sense to make a growth media from plastic. I think that's where the, the thing will be the efficiency of the enzyme.

Paul Shapiro: I didn't see this. I'll look for it. And if I find that I'll include it in the show notes for this episode of business for good podcast. com. But finally, Axel, [00:45:00] what resources aside from that paper that you meant that you just mentioned, what resources should people check out that if they want to, if they're thinking, Oh, I really admire what Axel has done here with Polybion.

I want to do something cool like that. Also. What should they check out?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: So some books that helped me a lot. I'm going to talk from a bioengineer perspective. I'm sorry, because that's what my experience has been. So one book that was great for me was while I was growing and, and becoming an engineer was called, or is called Microcosmos from Lynn Margulis.

Lynn Margulis was the wife of Carl Sagan, and she invented the endosymbiosis theory, which basically explains how. Complex cells or eukaryotes came about from single cell organisms in stromatolites in ancient seas, but more important, that gives you the perspective of the microcosm, like, or, or like Feynman, Richard Feynman used to say, there's plenty of room at the bottom, meaning like, as I told you, we don't understand Like we, we really [00:46:00] understand so few about the universe and DNA and, and and physics that this, this book is great to, to get you into perspective.

That, that this is just a tiny, like, we're so tiny in the universe. Like we don't even like matter that much. You know, like we're just, or as car used to say like, we're the, the pale blue dot, like the, the fraction of a pixel in, in the picture. Like the, the one they took from our solar system that it's like a.

Pale blue pixel in the picture, that's earth. And we're just like, even a country is just a fraction of the pixel. So, so this gets you into perspective and also biological perspective of, of the macrocosm, the microcosm. And so, so yeah, I think that one is a, it's a great book to give you a very.

Generalized perspective not, not very technically deep enough so that you can read it very like casually. And yeah, it's a great perspective for understanding how life arose on this planet, how complex life arose and how, and what is life in that regard, in the sense of, of the, the macro scale, the macrocosm and the [00:47:00] microcosm and where do we are in, in between those two universes, humans and, and how can we help The universe, basically.

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. Well, I will link to microcosmos in the show notes for this episode as well. It looks like a really great book. I've read so many Sagan books and I'm such a huge Sagan fan that when you walk into the, when you walk into the lobby of my company, we have a gigantic portrait of Carl Sagan in the lobby.

That's the first thing that, that you, that you get treated with. So I, I'm a, I'm a huge fans. I, I came so close to meeting him in 19. 96. I was going to a conference. It was a, it was an animal protection conference that he was speaking at. And sadly he had cancer and he could not make the talk, but his wife and Ryan did go and give the talk.

So I got to meet her at least. And she was a coauthor with him on many books and did some really cool things as well. So I'm, I'm at least I got to meet her, which was a real honor for me. Are there other books or other, other resources, Axel, or is microcosmos the book that you're [00:48:00] recommending?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: That one is, that one is a great one.

More than books, I would like, again, from my perspective from an engineer, let's say there's a great Mexican engineer that existed a long time ago, which was It's like an inspiration for me. It was Carlos Gonzalez Camarena and this guy actually invented color TV. Many people don't know this, but this guy invented the trichromatic system, meaning RGB, right?

Or red, green, and blue for like what makes LEDs Basically color TV. And the interesting story about these guys that he made it with vacuum tubes. And then Americans and Japanese basically made a very similar system using like not, not analogic, but digital system, which is what basically created the, the, the actual technology that was the first color TVs.

But then this, this guy, Gonzales Camarena system, since it was a vacuum system, it could be used in space. And the Apollo transmissions actually used his patent and his system because it was not [00:49:00] digital, it was analog and could be used in space. But the interesting thing about these guys is that he made this as we made Polyvion.

He made it from scrap parts from a landfill in Mexico City. He used like like washing machines and TVs that were thrown away, collected all these pieces because he didn't have budget to buy the, the pieces. And he basically made like a Frankenstein that. And that led to his first he also founded the first channel, like in TV in Mexico, like the first TV channel, let's say Canal Cinco is now owned by Televisa, but he was a, the founder of that.

So, yeah, I think that, that for me is a great character to, to follow. And,

Paul Shapiro: Tell me again, his name, I can say his name one more time, so we can make sure we include a link to him here.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yeah. Carlos Gonzalez Camarena. I can write it for you.

Paul Shapiro: Got it. Okay. Yeah, I'm looking at him on, I don't know if this is the same gentleman.

Is there, might he also be Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena?

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Yes. I mean, I mean, his [00:50:00] brother, he's really was a painter. Also very famous. Oh,

Paul Shapiro: interesting. Okay. Okay. Very cool. Well, we'll include that. Thank you very much. And Axel, it is a real pleasure to meet you. Thanks so much for your important work. There are cows all over the world who are grateful to you for what you're doing to literally save their skin.

And I can't wait. To see the polybion selenium for sale across the world. And we'll all be wearing really cool shoes, belts, wallets, jackets, car seats, and everything made from your bacterial cellulose.

Alex Gomez-Ortigoza Aguirre: Thank you, Paul. Gracias.