From Villain to Hero: Rubi Labs’s Quest to Make CO2 Work for the Climate

Paul Shapiro: [00:00:00] Nika, welcome to the Business for Good Podcast. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's really great to be on with you. when I first saw a photo of you with your co-founder, I thought, wow, these people look really alike. I don't know which one is Nika. And then I started reading more, and it turns out that your co-founder is actually your twin sister.

Yes,

Neeka Mashouf: identical twins and it's been great. In case you're wondering,

Paul Shapiro: everyone always asks, I'm wondering, I mean, it's tough. Like, there's a company that's called, hungry Planet that you may have heard of. It's a plant-based meat company and it's run by Todd and Jody Boman, who, boy men who are brothers and sisters, not twins, but they're brother and sister.

And, I always, think, having. A company with family is a really difficult thing, right? Like, you can't, you can't really fire your family members. it's like team members can be fired if they don't perform, but family members, you can't really get rid of 'em. And so I'm wondering, [00:01:00] like, how does this work?

I mean, I presume you all must have been pretty down with each other, in advance of starting the company, but how does it work? Like if you have disputes, if there's some disagreement on something, like what, what's the mechanism for resolving something with your twin sister here?

I think it's a fantastic question and I also see a lot of companies started with siblings or family members and, I, there's definitely always a unique set of challenges that come with it, but I think the benefits of it, if it's the right partnership, are very strong.

and I think when you're thinking about a co-founder, and I, when I was originally starting the company, I was actually like looking for co-founders initially. I didn't even know that I would end up starting it with, my sister. but I was thinking through like what's important in a co-founder relationship and trust is so important and being able to, discuss and bounce ideas and have conflicts in a positive way.

Neeka Mashouf: All of those things are critical to. Having a strong co-founding relationship. And I think [00:02:00] that is what enables me and my sister Layla, to be such good co-founders. It's like unbelievable level of trust and we just understand each other and we can, we like to say we can argue very efficiently because we've done it like our whole lives.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. So, yeah, I'll tell you like I, I have found in my own marriage that it is not a good idea to work together. And we have very similar interests and kind of similar professions in some respect actually. but when we've tried to do projects together, I can assure you it did not permit marital harmony.

And, and, and so of course we do not have the relationship the twin siblings would have. But I admire that. So what was it about Lewa that led you to want to start the company? Like obviously you're implying the company was your idea. You were looking for a co-founder, you went out in the world and what you were looking for was actually right there in your own home.

So what was it about her, like why, what is the complimentary skillset that you all have? Like what's the division of labor between the two of you at this company? I. Yeah.

Neeka Mashouf: Yeah. I really think it ended up being such a perfect [00:03:00] match that it was almost like as if it was perfectly planned our whole lives.

And maybe I'll like touch on that. We just have like very harmonious skillsets for exactly what we're building. And I think that ended up coming out as I was first like, started to conceptualize the idea and then I would just brainstorm with Layla sometimes and we prototyped the tech together even before she joined, like full-time.

And it was just so clear that it was a perfect mesh of our skillsets. Maybe if it's helpful, I can start with, my background and Layla's and sort of how it started.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, sure. What, what is the background? Do you all have similar interests? like, you hear, like, did, did you ever see, did you ever see the movie Three Identical Strangers?

No. it's, it was like a CNN documentary. It's an amazing story actually. It's about these, triplets who were all separated at birth and adopted into different families, and even though they never knew each other as children, it turns out like. they ended up doing similar things in life, and two of them even ended up going to the same college and it wasn't like a college near them.

Oh, wow. It was [00:04:00] kinda like a small school that not a lot of people go to. so do you find that you and and Layla have similar interests and like what, what was it that led you to,go into this? Like what was your background versus hers and why you think she would be not just, redundant but actually complimentary to you?

Neeka Mashouf: Yeah, totally. We ended up going into different fields. and so I think that pairing ended up being really great. I think we both started with, a strong passion and inspiration in nature and like natural sciences. My take on that and my inspiration was always in, how we can learn from natural systems and apply, those insights to make our human-based manufacturing and materials production and, sort of more of these industrial systems be more planet positive and sustainable.

so I really focused in on energy and material science, and also business. Starting from when I was 15 years old, I published my first paper in artificial photosynthesis at a national lab here in the Bay Area.[00:05:00] and that was really like this initial spark, of me being really passionate about the

Paul Shapiro: space.

Well, let me just interrupt you if you don't mind here, Nico. So what I heard you just say is that at 15 years old, you published a paper, I presume it's like a peer reviewed published paper. Is that right? Like in an, it sounds like by saying you published it, like in an academic journal, it wasn't like in, your local newspaper.

Mm-hmm. and, and so can, we'll, we'll link to this paper in the show notes at business for good podcast.com. But what was the paper about like at, at 15 years old? I can, I can assure you, the things that I was thinking about we're not publishing academic papers. so, your parents must have done some, your parents must have done something right here that others did not.

so why were you like, why at 15? I don't know if you were old enough to know who Doogie Hauser is, but it sounds kind of like a Doogie Hauser type thing to know you're shaking your head, but. It's a TV show from when I, when I was a young person. It was a TV show about a very precocious doctor who was extremely young and like, graduated from medical school, like was a teenager and was like seeing patients who, he was [00:06:00] dramatically younger then.

Paul Shapiro: But anyway, publishing a, a peer reviewed academic. Paper at age 15 sounds kind of like a Doogie Hauser type thing to do. what That in and of itself requires some explanation. So what was it that, I mean, I, I didn't, I don't think I knew about what an academic journal even was at 15 letter one that I could publish in one.

Yeah. So,

and I co-authored the paper. So, basically that summer, I had interned in a lab focused on artificial photosynthesis, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. and I had like sought out that internship because I was so interested in being able to kinda like. Take natural systems and mimic them and apply them to energy and, and other things.

Neeka Mashouf: So I had always really loved like renewable energy and concepts around that. I'd always just been like the person who was like tinkering with things, making like miniature solar powered things and messing around with [00:07:00] electrical components and, and things like that. so it was always just like a natural interest.

It wasn't really any sort of like pressure from parents or anything to succeed or whatever. it was just like me following my interests and I reached out to a bunch of different scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Cause I grew up around here. just trying to. get to work in their lab and see what was up.

and that summer I was like so lucky to be able to intern in a lab and, work on, research around artificial photosynthesis. So basically developing materials that could take sunlight to split water and develop like hydrogen and carbon-based fuels. and so that paper was around, one of the materials that I helped, research and, do a lot of the development for, that had like strong potential as a material that could split water, and basically mimic

Paul Shapiro: photosynthesis.

Very cool. That is really cool. So we know what your background was then like, similar for the summers you're going to science camp [00:08:00] basically, rather than, learning to play tennis or anything. but what about Lela? Was she also interested in science? Like was this something that you guys both grew up wanting to pursue?

Neeka Mashouf: Yeah. Yeah. So she was also coming from a science background, but slightly different. She took her. Like nature inspiration to really, be inspired by biological systems and, through that actually medicine. so her focus, and she also started from when she was 15 too, doing research, was always more on, Sort of medical problems, therapeutics.

she ended up focusing a lot on like nano drug delivery, brain tumors. She studied neuroscience at, Johns Hopkins when she went to college, and then she most recently actually graduated from Harvard Medical School. So she really took like the medical route and has like very strong bioengineering background that sort of paired up with my material science background and it's like a perfect marriage for what we're doing at Ruby.

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. Yeah, I've heard of that medical school before. that's [00:09:00] cool. Yeah. Good for her. So you, you mentioned what you're doing at Ruby. What is it just, let's get the reveal here. So, obviously you two are very smart and very ambitious from a young age. so you wanna do something that's going to help the world.

So what is it specifically that Ruby is actually doing that's gonna make the world a better place?

Neeka Mashouf: Yeah, so at, at Ruby we create, Basically as, as our vision, a world where human prosperity is planet positive through decarbonizing supply chains. and we're starting with the apparel industry as the third most CO2 polluting supply chain today.

and the tech that we've developed and, and what we do at our core is inspired by how trees grow. When you think of a tree, it takes in CO2 and then uses that CO2 to produce, various different materials and its structure, inspired by that process. We use biochemical processes, powered by enzymes to take carbon emissions.

Neeka Mashouf: Eat those carbon emissions and make carbon negative, [00:10:00] materials. And our first material that we're making is a textile.

Paul Shapiro: So when you say you're taking carbon emissions, you're not directly capturing from the air. You are seeking more concentrated sources of carbon emissions. Right.

Neeka Mashouf: So our technology actually works on anywhere between direct air captures, like very dilute co2, all the way up to very high concentrated.

but our business model is to capture CO2 directly at, manufacturing facilities. it's, so that's typically around. Yeah, it's, it's usually, or the, manufacturers we're working with are mainly textile mills, but also chemicals, manufacturers, energy, food and beverage manufacturers, et cetera.

the CO2 that comes out of those facilities, out of the smokestack is usually like eight to 20% co2. Mm-hmm. so it's more than enough for a

system.

Paul Shapiro: Cool. A as opposed to the atmosphere generally, which is less than 1%. Yeah, exactly. Right, right. Okay. that's really riveting. So you could theoretically set up [00:11:00] shop on a textile plant, capture their co2, and then create textiles for them to utilize and, and make a pair of jeans out of, Yeah, exactly.

So how do you do it? I know you're using bioreactors, but these are not bioreactors like what many listeners of the show would be thinking of, which are filled up with a liquid and they're growing cells and things like that. You're not doing that. So what's happening inside of the Ruby Bioreactor that is taking C2 from the smoke smack of a textile company and converting it back into more textiles?

Neeka Mashouf: Yeah, so our tech is based on, enzymes. So like you said, there's no cells in there. It's not really a typical bioreactor. It's a fully cell-free industrial bio catalysis system. And what that means is, You have all these enzymes, floating around in our system. They're stabilized using, basically some, polymer structures that we use to help keep the enzymes intact and active, so that they can keep performing their functions even in this industrial [00:12:00] environment.

the first enzyme in the pathway, grabs onto the co2. Does a chemical reaction on it, hands it to the next enzyme, and it basically goes down this cascade, and turns that CO2 into the long cellulose chains, that then we can make into fiber and textile.

Paul Shapiro: So this is a gaseous fermentation that you are at the end when you open up the bioreactor, there is a solid that is left in there.

And what does it look like?

Neeka Mashouf: Yeah. So you can, you can actually think of this as like a continuous chemical process. so, gas comes in one side. We have a few reactors, they're like filled with enzymes and liquid. the intermediates go through and then at the end we separate out, the solid cellulose.

And I think the best example of what the visual looks like is if you put a piece of paper in water and sort of like melted it down in there, it's sort of like pulp, so that's exactly what it's called. Cellulose pulp. Mm-hmm. and so it's a [00:13:00] solid, it comes out very easy to filter.

Paul Shapiro: And so you have a downstream process that mechanically de waters that pulp and turns it into something that's more like a dry cellulose that you could then sell.

Neeka Mashouf: Yeah. So, actually we like directly take that cellulose and put it into the fiber spinning process. Hmm. it's a little known like big benefit actually for the textile industry that we don't have to dry the cellulose and ship it off somewhere else, or, because it's so energy intensive. So that's also like a nice part about our system.

We not only, make the cellulose through a carbon negative process, but then we can skip some of the processing steps too for the next stages.

Paul Shapiro: That's cool. And so is the idea that you'll then sell that, that product as a b2b, product for somebody else to make the pair of jeans? Or will we be able to one day buy a pair of jeans with the Ruby logo on the back where it would otherwise say Levi's.

Neeka Mashouf: Yeah, so, we are working with a lot of major apparel brands to, [00:14:00] develop, right now sort of pilots and prototype collections. but ultimately, we would be a textile supplier to these brands to make the same garments that they would normally make just replace with our material. And I think it's, one important thing to note is the material we're making is actually the same as a good chunk of the material that they're already using.

it's the third most common textile family in the world. It's called man-made cellulose Fibers, and we're just making that same textile.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah. And so the, the cellulose fibers that are human made that you're referring to, that's li cell right.

Neeka Mashouf: Exactly. Yeah. Cel, Visco, rayon. Right.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. And so you're basically creating kind of like rayon, but instead of making it through either let's say like trees or fossil fuels, you're just making it through this type of a gaseous fermentation process.

That's exciting. Exactly. That's really exciting. Yeah, and,

Neeka Mashouf: and I think the big,I, I think the big exciting part of that too, a lot of the brands we're working with and I [00:15:00] guess also just from the climate perspective is, when we replace those typical deforestation processes that today go into materials, it's not only that our material sequesters carbon, that's one great piece of the carbon impact, but because it can also replace, a traditional manufacturing process that's so carbon intensive.

It's both like this carbon mitigation plus carbon sequestration, ability that I think, is very special and. What we're excited about, about driving,carbon impact.

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. And, and I presume I, I, well, first, let me say my knowledge of fashion is nil. I, I have like a few shirts and I just wear them all the time.

And, if you saw me more than once, I'd probably be wearing the same thing, honestly. so, but I know you have an intense interest in fashion, so was your motivation for starting this company more to do with your lifelong interest in fashion? Or your passion for protecting the planet, [00:16:00] like which came first for you in this case?

Neeka Mashouf: Great question. the planet side came first and as I was developing the technology, there was actually so many different avenues of materials we could make from co2 and there still is, the technology we're building as a. Is a platform. so we can not only make cellulose from co2, but we can make things like starches and proteins and lipids.

so that's building materials, packaging, food, et cetera. and it was more of a, kinda strategic business decision, like what industry do we focus on first? and. I think what was really unique about me and Layla's, background growing up and growing up with like a family fashion brand is we had a really good sense of, The issues facing the industry today, the need for more sustainable materials and how much brands are spending to try and find and adopt these more sustainable materials.

Neeka Mashouf: The reason that is, is just because apparel and fashion is so [00:17:00] central to consumers personal identity, that over the last five years as like the climate movement has been growing, it's been one of the main industries that is actually. really started to move and try and adopt new solutions. And typically that's led to greenwashing because there hasn't been a lot of solutions.

But what it shows is, consumers are demanding like more green things. And at this point it's sort of like greenwashing, is called out a lot. So it needs to be like a real solution.

Paul Shapiro: Understood, understood. So the company has raised a good amount of money. you've only been around for a few years, but you've already raised over 13 million, including closing a round in March of 2023.

Not exactly the best time to be raising venture capital. Very dry markets, very dry capital markets right now. Very tight. Tight market to be raising in. So first, congratulations on your fundraising success. How many folks work at the company now, Nika? And what are you doing? Like you're talking about these [00:18:00] brands that you're partnering with, who are you partnered with and are these products commercialized yet?

So how many people work there and where can people get any, any type of, product that might have been made using your technology? Yeah.

we're at about 25 people right now, mostly on the science and engineering side. And, we've been really focused, as a company on scaling the technology from where it was about a year ago, which was test tube scale to now our pilot production scale, where we're able to generate, Material every month for these pilot partnerships and, and then

Paul Shapiro: continue to scale up.

So to help people envision that. So if you were in test tubes now, are you in flasks or are you in bioreactors yet? Yeah, so

Neeka Mashouf: now we're in reactors. Our system, is about a 50 liter system. it's slightly different than when you think of bioreactors because per liter in a bio catalysis system, you get so much more product.

so you require like less volume overall, in our system. So [00:19:00] not apples to apples, but. Just to give you a sense of what scale we're at. sure. Like volumetrically. Yeah.

Paul Shapiro: So, so you're, so you're creating, you're creating basic, you have a pilot plant basically, and you're creating material for these companies.

And are they experimenting with it or are they actually selling products that have your technology in it?

Neeka Mashouf: Right. So at this scale we're doing, prototyping. So, these brands are making garments, using our material. Later this year, we'll be, with a few brands moving up to more like capsule collections, which is a few more garments or, early next year, thousands of garments per brand that would actually be available to consumers.

so what we're working towards right now is commercialization.

Paul Shapiro: Great. And what's the barrier? Is it just larger reactors that you need or is it something else that the company needs in order to actually get to the scale where somebody's gonna go to h and m and buy some ruby inspired genes?

Neeka Mashouf: Yeah, it's really the scale up and that's what the team is [00:20:00] laser focused on, because it's, Overall, a very new technology.

there's a lot that our team is developing for the first time. Luckily, enzyme based systems have been around and been scaled in other industries very significantly, for like decades, like high, high UCT corn syrup and wastewater treatments and other production processes that use enzymes at a massive scale.

Neeka Mashouf: So we can learn from those processes, but what's unique about our system is, we've created a few innovations that allow us to build up a molecule or a polymer from like small pieces. And there's certain things that go into that that make it slightly complicated as we scale. so that scale up is the big, piece that we're all focused on.

and especially like rest of this year as we move towards those larger scale. Available to the public collections. the whole team is very focused on scaling from even our pilot to like a demo scale.

Paul Shapiro: That's awesome. Well, [00:21:00] congratulations. it's really exciting. I hope that I get to see that 50 liter reactor chugging away.

I would really love to see what that cylo pulp looks like. maybe it, do you have any photos that you can send and we'll include it on the webpage for this episode at Business for good podcast.com so people can see, what it, what it takes to turn CO2 into textiles. That would be really cool. Yeah, absolutely.

Neeka Mashouf: We can do like a step-by-step picture.

Paul Shapiro: Great. Okay. We, we will include it. That would be awesome. Let me ask you, Nika, obviously, you grew up in Northern California and you were around a lot of people who thought about starting companies, who were starting companies. there's not many people were thinking at like 15.

I'm gonna go intern at a, at a prestigious lab and start publishing papers, let alone to start a company at, at, at, at, at an early age as well. but yet you were in that milieu. So I presume that there are many other ideas that you have as well for companies that you think could do really good in the world, but that because you're focused on Ruby here, you're not [00:22:00] able to do so.

Let me ask you, like, what do you wish that somebody else would start, some other cool technology or idea that might help climate change or some other issue about what you're passionate that you are not gonna do, but maybe some listener will do? Yeah,

Neeka Mashouf: I love that question. and that's so like spot on.

I've always had an idea book and have always, like, I still to this day, like, have so many technologies and things that I want to, bring to life and all of that. So, yeah. For anyone listening, I think there's a few. Key areas that are so important going into the near future for climate and sustainability?

I think one really big area is in, thermal energy delivery for industry. And, the reason I say that is when you look at, The top three supply chains that are most CO2 polluting and sort of breakdown, like, okay, where does all this CO2 come from? the majority of it, comes from. Having to deliver a very [00:23:00] high energy density to certain processes.

and so it's quite hard to do that today through renewable energy. But if we had a better way to store renewable energy and then deliver that energy through, Thermal, processes or higher density, basically energy deliveries that we could run those processes that need heat or, need some other types of energy.

that's a very big chunk of the problem. and I think there's a few cool companies that are, are doing that now and, maybe getting started. but I think it's such a huge area. that, and then also just generally, one thing I like to think about is, Unlocking abundance in areas where there's scarcity.

I think one really cool thing that has always caught my attention is, sand is a material that's used like so widely, in lots of different building materials and concrete and or cement and other things. and this crazy stat where, the buildings, In, Dubai. Like they sh [00:24:00] it's in a desert, but they ship that sand from Australia because it's just like this certain type of sand that, needs to make these materials.

Neeka Mashouf: And so I think it's a cool problem statement, like, how can you take all this abundant material, in this case sand and turn it into the useful type of material that can then go into our building materials so we don't have to, rely on these scarcity. Principles or, a lot of it ends up like ruining coastline and.

Rivers and, and that sort of stuff. but yeah, two, two things that have always been interesting to me.

Paul Shapiro: Very cool. Yeah. the sand idea is one that I've thought about because during the pandemic it, it was the case that the vials, like the glass vials that the, vaccines came in were like a very special type of sand that is like only from like one beach on the planet basically, because it had to be out withstand.

Like super low temperatures. This glass had to like withstand super low temperatures. And so it was like, there was like actually a concern about whether, you're making like billions of these vaccines [00:25:00] basically, and each one of them is a separate vial and there's only so much of that sand. So like, it is an interesting question, like how can you create and maybe through, maybe it's through an enzymatic process, you would be interested in, to convert.

the sand that you're gonna find in, in like in the Middle East to use Dubai as an example, to create something that is more valuable. So, yeah, not ma not many people think of sand when they think about innovation, but maybe that's a ripe one for, for innovation. That's pretty interesting.

Paul Shapiro: All right. Well, totally. And a

Neeka Mashouf: great book to go along with that is,I think it's called Like The World in a Grain, or something like that. And that was the inspo for that idea.

Paul Shapiro: Oh, okay. Well, we'll find out the, the exact title of that book and include it in the show notes at business for good podcast.com.

So, if it's not the World in a Grain, look it up on our website and we'll, we'll have the actual. Thing there for you after this episode is recorded. but that's really cool. Yeah, very, very interesting. I, I'm gonna definitely be looking more into that. So, you've already recommended one book here, the World in the Grain or something [00:26:00] similar to that.

but let me ask you, Anika, like obviously you have been, reading for a long time, so maybe there are other books that have been inspirational for you, in your own entrepreneurial journey. Are there any books or any other resources that you would recommend to somebody who is inspired by the path that you've taken with Ruby and think, Hey, let me recommend this to you cuz it was useful for me.

Neeka Mashouf: Yeah, definitely. I think books similar to, a World In a Grain or whatever the title is, have always been really helpful for me to dive into, just specific areas that I might know nothing about or, just bring sort of new perspectives and problems to mind. There's another one called Rivers of Power that was very interesting about like issues with fresh water and brackish water and rivers.

and I think if you like Google. Similar books to some of those books. You might find some, some other great ones. But it's basically, overviews of kind of technical or science issues, but with commentary about like current global, [00:27:00] challenges. and I think the other like holy grail just thing that I think was so helpful for me starting my company was the how I built this podcast.

I've just been listening to that like throughout college and, It was just so helpful to hear so many different perspectives and stories of starting a company, and I think it just really gives anyone the skillset.

Paul Shapiro: It's really remarkable how many people comment on that podcast, which I also really like.

I, I think it's a great podcast. but it's really remarkable how many people comment on that. And I've, I have, Hypothesized that there is an entire generation of companies that have been started by people who listen to that podcast who thought, that person could do it. Why couldn't die? And I'll tell you, I, I thought about this.

Yeah. With regard to like my own life because, About five and a half years ago, I put out a book about, entrepreneurs who are trying to revolutionize the meat industry by, creating slaughter free meat. And I, before writing the book, thought of these people as like, these like superheroes who really were doing this amazing thing and that they must be, particularly genius.

[00:28:00] And upon interviewing them and learning their stories, I realized, they are superheroes in some sense, right? They're doing something that's really important for the world. But that many of them had no experience whatsoever prior to starting these companies. it's like they were micro, they weren't microbiologists, they weren't food scientists, they didn't have an MBA from Harvard.

Like, these were just people who cared deeply about a problem and they decided, I'm gonna try to take this on. And that is what I really love about how I built this podcast, is that you talked to all the, you, excuse me, that they talked to all these people who had. Virtually no experience. Like nobody would think, oh yeah, you should be the one to go start a company.

yeah. And, and yet they still find ways to succeed, and including having a lot of adversity along the way. So I really like hearing those stories and, and after writing this book, it's called Clean Meat, I came to the conclusion like, the people who are doing these are just as dumb as I am. like, why?

if, if they could do it, why can't I do it? It's such an important,

Neeka Mashouf: it's. Such an important realization. And I like constantly remind myself of that even throughout the starting a [00:29:00] company journey, cuz there's always challenges that you run into and it's, it's just like good to think like no one knows what they're doing and everyone's just figuring it out.

And even these massive companies that have been around for hundreds of years, or innovations and inventions that we like, refer to in history, like no one really knew what they were doing and they just like followed an interest or they just figured it out. yeah,

Paul Shapiro: or there was me to, yeah. Or there was like an accident that they didn't intend to happen where they learned something from that.

Yeah. Right. Okay. Well on, on that note, it's good to end with some humility here. So I appreciate that very much, Nika, and I really appreciate what you're doing. I'll look forward to hopefully wearing a pair of ruby jeans sometime, or presumably there will be like Stella McCartney jeans that have been made with Ruby's textiles, but I look forward to that.

Someday my wife would be particularly happy since I wear the same pair of jeans every day. So, that would be a benefit for her as well. So [00:30:00] hopefully, that'll come to pass soon, but we'll be rooting for your success and looking forward to seeing not just more fundraising success, but more commercialization success so you can have the impact that you're really seeking to have here.

Thank you so much.