Two young scientists built a $250M business using yeast to clean up wastewater

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2020/07/06/how-two-young-scientists-built-a-250-million-business-using-yeast-to-clean-up-wastewater/#591ecf777802

by sethbannon • 6 years ago

366 64 6 years ago

forbes.com

smash1213• 6 years ago

Very impressive!

robbomacrae3• 6 years ago

Indeed! These inspiring stories give me a glimmer of hope in the future. It seems that a combination of low carbon demand by the end consumer and a desire to work on low carbon technologies by our brightest minds are disrupting the otherwise formidable capital of established high carbon tech.

nostromo• 6 years ago

Their sales pitch was that the product was petroleum-free, a boon for spas that like to market being “natural.”

It's interesting that people see genetically modified yeast producing hydrogen peroxide as "natural" -- but not regular hydrogen peroxide.

ponker• 6 years ago

Well you can see the advantage here, the biological process that created this hydrogen peroxide from wastewater also created other compounds beneficial to the application. This isn't New Age chakra stuff, this has a direct chemical cause-and-effect.

maxerickson• 6 years ago

They also buy waste from corn ethanol plants, which is nice, but there's a lot of natural gas and diesel implicated in those processes.

frandroid• 6 years ago

The ethanol plants are already in the greenwashing business so it makes sense to go all-in. :)

Alex3917• 6 years ago

It's interesting that people see genetically modified yeast producing hydrogen peroxide as "natural" -- but not regular hydrogen peroxide.

If the yeast started producing too much hydrogen peroxide then presumably it would just die. Unlike when someone adds too much chemicals to a pool, which is common enough that probably most people have experienced it.

three_seagrass2• 6 years ago

Their product sounds like pure hydrogen peroxide, not the actual yeast.

The yeast are in chemical reactors. The company harvests the peroxide from the reactors and sells it as a substitute to petroleum-produced peroxide.

three_seagrass2• 6 years ago

That's because GMO-free and the natural fallacy are marketing ploys.

velox_io• 6 years ago

The entire ad campaign around OxiClean: "usages the power of oxyzen" as if it natural and chemical free. It may be natural, but it isn't the [semi] friendly O2 variety that we breath.

Read some of the Q&As for Ozone Generators on Amazon, many people think it's safe for humans and pets. The internet is a dangerous place for information at times.

vondur• 6 years ago

Older laser printers were notorious for generating Ozone. I don't think people realize that Ozone is also bad for humans in addition to the atmosphere.

verall• 6 years ago

I really don't know how people think these are safe, I have a "ozone-free" UVC disinfectant light and it still produces enough ozone to smell pretty bad. I can only imagine how an O3 generator smells.

taneq2• 6 years ago

Arrrrrgh oxygen is a chemical, everything is made of chemicals.

jimmySixDOF• 6 years ago

Aquious Ozone is some of the safest and environmentally friendly disinfectant you can find. Only problem is that you need to use it right after making it.

robbomacrae3• 6 years ago

I think this was just a bad summarization of the selling point for spas. This solution, coming from yeast, is carbon net negative (as they mention further down in the article) and reduces demand for a product of petroleum which might lead to more staying in the ground. The spa can then claim a lower carbon footprint which I imagine is very marketable.

geitir• 6 years ago

Hydrogen peroxide needs to be industrially synthesized and from googling a traditional synthesis route uses a palladium catalyst. That said I'm sure antiseptic hydrogen peroxide is highly regulated regarding trace metals.

hoopleheaded• 6 years ago

Vanillin is a good example of this. Vanillin produced by engineered yeast cost multiple times more than synthetic vanillin despite being identical products. This is because US packaging does not need to call the yeast-produced compound artificial vanilla flavor.

milofeynman2• 6 years ago

What are the legal/ethical/regulations you have to jump through to be allowed to dump genetically modified yeast into a pond?

sdinsn• 6 years ago

They don't dump genetically modified anything anywhere. Inside a lab, they produce chemicals using genetically modified enzymes instead of traditional methods of chemistry.

milofeynman2• 6 years ago

Ah I see, so it's a hydrogen peroxide and mineral solution produced from the yeast. They are selling this solution with no microbes inside.

jcfrei• 6 years ago

So is this one of the emerging multi billion dollar companies built on the new gene editing tools?

blaufast2• 6 years ago

This one looks like it makes money which is strange

why_only_15• 6 years ago

[the company expects] revenue to surpass $30 million this year, though the company is not yet profitable as it spends heavily to expand

elmolino892• 6 years ago

The strangest thing is the supposed use of a human(?) cancer cell enzyme. While cancer genomes mutate a lot, I doubt that starting from some canonical human protein it is feasible to get an enzyme competitive in performance with enzymes from bacteria, fungi or algae. There are millions of species of these with bunch of weirdos living anywhere from hot springs to hipersaline marshes and surfaces of the icebergs.

jcims• 6 years ago

The Thought Emporium on YouTube has a few livestream-style videos where he does gene editing experiments like this for fun (?). Very interesting stuff. I feel like textiles will be coming soon.

https://www.youtube.com/c/thethoughtemporium

gandreani3• 6 years ago

Great share!

I wish these were shorter but I guess I have to breakout my notepad again

patmorgan232• 6 years ago

He has some shorter scripted videos.

Mvandenbergh2• 6 years ago

Very cool. Slight correction though:

“It was a Trojan Horse for us, with an aim of selling the brand and getting a supplier contract,” he says. As in the Iliad, the plan worked.

The Trojan Horse isn't actually in the Iliad, it's in the Little Iliad, a now lost epic poem.

basilgohar• 6 years ago

I think a lot of people don't know this, and I just learned this now even though I used to have quite an interest in Greek mythology.

I appreciate the pedantic correction.

skuhn• 6 years ago

Nice catch. The Iliad doesn't actually concern itself with the end of the Trojan War.

The horse is mentioned briefly in the Odyssey, since it's attributed to Odysseus's cunning wit. Probably the work that describes it most thoroughly is the Aenid, which came hundreds of years after Homer's works or the Little Iliad.

colechristensen• 6 years ago

That's six or seven hundred years that Virgil wrote the Aneid, as a sort of founding myth for Rome during its transition from the republic to ... or really at the beginning of the empire (not long after Julius Caesar's death). It was almost a sort of political propaganda, legitimizing and linking the empire to an ancestral root to their gods.

The Romans often were inspired by, appropriated, imitated, or embraced Greek culture which was looked upon highly. Much of their success can be attributed to their ability to integrate many cultures and meld them into a diverse Roman culture.

chejazi• 6 years ago

edit: plz ignore, misread (thanks bb611)

Anyone else think it's suspicious that they paid $3M for a plant to the cofounder's father?

vmception• 6 years ago

I don't think it's suspicious, I think it is quite commonplace for people to amplify their roadmap and accelerate their business by having a resource that other people don't have.

The possibility of an unfair advantage is how you get investors to close.

He should be compensated for that, it would be fun for it to be suspicious if we knew the cost of the other places they looked at, and if this was much more than those costs, but the mere convenience of a large transaction to the father doesn't elevate that at all. Just reminds me of the resources I would like my family and network to have to make our good ideas become more viable.

bb611• 6 years ago

I think you simply misread the article.

A half hour later, he was touring a decommissioned chemical manufacturing plant that had been used to turn oil into plastics, with Chakrabarti’s father, Gopendu, a chemical engineer and entrepreneur. The hulking factory, on a 5-acre site, still had intact piping and tanks, and even boasted a 1-acre apple and pear orchard, planted by the previous owner as a carbon offset. The elder Chakrabarti swore they’d never find a better space. After touring 20 more sites over the next month, Hunt finally agreed. Solugen paid nearly $3 million for the plant.

They toured the plant with him, taking advantage of free advice from a knowledgeable, skilled person. They didn't pay him.

adenadel2• 6 years ago

Has anyone else ever heard of an MD-PhD student being called a "mud-phud"? I'm in a PhD program (and have several friends that are MD-PhD candidates) and my wife is an MD and I've never heard of this term.

franctic2• 6 years ago

I’m a mud-phud, use it myself and have heard it used all over!

asdff• 6 years ago

What region? This thread is the first I've heard of it too.

gandreani3• 6 years ago

I wrote some cliff notes if anyone else is interested

Company is called Solugen. $12 M/yr in 2019, on track for >30 M/yr in 2020

Wastewater treatment is 80% of their revenue

Bio-engineered a yeast to create produce enzymes that create hydrogen peroxide from feedstock sugar

The solution produced also contains organic acids that breakdown minerals. Mineral buildup can clog and corrode pipes over time

Initially created 5 gallon batches, for use in pools, hot tubs and spas. Found that market after a group of float-spa owners contacted them on facebook

Joined Y-Combinator

Partnered with wipe manufacturer to sell them hydrogen peroxide solution hoping the deal was stepping stone to bigger industrial customers

Hired a salesperson from oilfield services Schlumberger to market wastewater cleaning products to oil drillers

The product is appealing for the wastewater cleanup market because of it's anti mineral buildup effects and it does not cause algal blooms compared to HEDP. It's a $5 B/yr market. Includes oil and gas drilling which regulation requires wastewater to be cleaned. The product had a successful test with an oil and gas customer. The customer had 20% reduced efficiency in it's water injectors because of iron-scale buildup and lost $29 M/yr. The product increased production again without the need of additional acid sitmulation. Demand for wastewater treatment increases with age of oil drilling sites. “We go head to head with phosphates, We are not premium.”

Production of solution also sequesters 1.35 tons of CO2 compared to it's competitor HEDP which emits 3 tons. According to independent audit from Life Cycle Analysis

Also produced more than 100K gallons of hand sanitizer that it dontated to healthcare facilities. Partenered with local ethenol facility. Plans to increase hand sanitizer production mini-mills (smaller regional production facilities) and considering commercial opportunities

Plans to expand to agriculture fertilizing, a $175 B/yr market. Hoping to re-invent fertilizer with biodegradable alternative that replenishes essential minerals and metals to soil

thinkcontext• 6 years ago

Production of solution also sequesters 1.35 tons of CO2 compared to it's competitor HEDP which emits 3 tons.

Why haven't they set up shop in Europe yet? If they are already cheaper than the conventional product the carbon price would be all additional profit.

kharak2• 6 years ago

They bio-engineered something.

Probably forbidden here, or really difficult to get approval. Europes public and leadership fears bio engineering and has not yet realised its importance in the future.

Someone with more insight into Biotech correct me if I am wrong.

Mvandenbergh2• 6 years ago

They're mostly selling to onshore oil production of which there is very little in Europe.

OJFord• 6 years ago

I wrote some cliff notes if anyone else is interested

What does this mean? Tongue-in-cheek interpretation: 'some simple paragraphs without full stops follow'. Is it some sort of note-taking framework though?

yjftsjthsd-h• 6 years ago

Cliff notes is a series of books that are extremely abridged versions of things that students need to read.

gandreani3• 6 years ago

Yes sorry about that. I copied these notes from my personal notes. The other commenter explained it well enough

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23754612

bagels• 6 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CliffsNotes

eximius• 6 years ago

On one hand, really impressive stuff that is simply a net positive over what we had before.

On the other, there is no way for joe schmoes like me to invest in a great company like this. :(

econcon2• 6 years ago

Wow! I like these chemical and biological processes which can alter the materials.

Guys! Can you suggest an easy way to convert PET plastic to PETG? Can we make bioengineered bacteria for this process.

I make 3d printing filament from plastic waste (currently using abs) and I can find lots of cheap PET plastic but it's not good for printing but PETG is.

econcon2• 6 years ago

Is it possible to create engineered bacterias at home? Or it can only be done in advanced institutes with big machines which average Joe can't afford?

blaufast2• 6 years ago

Yes it is very possible. It is very expensive to verify that you did it correctly and that it works as intended.

Genetics are not like code so unless you are copying previous work expect a very long road

patmorgan232• 6 years ago

It's most definitely possible. Check out the thought emporium YouTube channel. Also the 'unnatural evolution' series on Netflix.

Mumps• 6 years ago

you can do CRISPR/cas-9 in your kitchen, if you really choose (you can google diy kits for it. I endorse none, have no affiliation with any).

verification _can_ be tricky, but you can also send off your sample for sequencing fairly cheaply and quickly these days.

so, go for it!

elmolino892• 6 years ago

Mixing H2O2 with ethanol in one bottle looks strange. EtOH should just oxidize and one ends up with a bottle of vinegar or pure water with CO2 dissolved in it. They ad some stabilizer so the active oxygen is not being released or is it some kind of magic?

ur-whale• 6 years ago

http://archive.is/DoCrH

ppf• 6 years ago

They're only several hundred years late - us Brits have been using yeast to clean up our water into nice safe beer for a long time!

realtalk_sp• 6 years ago

It wasn't clear to me in reading this article whether or not this is actually cost competitive with existing hydrogen peroxide production methods. Or is it more about it being an environmentally-friendly play?

robbomacrae3• 6 years ago

They said something about being cost competitive with the established suppliers "we are not a premium".

Two young scientists built a $250M business using yeast to clean up wastewater

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