Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, has died at 94. It's hard to express Gordon’s impact in ushering in an era where microchips are in everyday devices everywhere, from laptops to phones to children’s toys. A talk with Gordon years ago helped shape my view on innovation. Read my perspective on how predictable experience curves (like Moore’s Law) united in novel ways can create unpredictable outcomes and wildly successful products.
Congrats to 1955 Capital’s portfolio company Nature’s Fynd for raising $350 million. I’m grateful and humbled that Thomas (CEO) and Matt (CFO) chose 1955 as their Series A lead investor back in 2018, and we remain strong supporters, with $50 million invested to date. We are thrilled to partner with Softbank, Blackstone, Hillhouse, Balyasny Asset Management, Hongkou, EDBI, and SK in this round. The founders’ incredible vision is unchanged, and they continue to show tremendous progress toward achieving their goal: to build the next great sustainable food company and impact the lives of millions around the globe.
From Fortune raceAhead, by Ellen McGirt, March 23, 2021
Today, we turn this space over to Andrew Chung, a first-generation Asian American and founder and managing partner of 1955 Capital. He shares his experience with racism, his anguish over the murders in Atlanta, and issues a very specific call to action.
The American Dream at Risk
…My father dutifully wore a mask in a local pharmacy and was harassed by a patron who yelled, ‘Nobody’s wearing a mask in here, you’re scaring everyone with this whole China Virus!’ Dad was scared for his life and took off his mask, putting his health at risk... I had to call my parents and ask them to give up their cherished freedoms, because our collective voice has been too soft to drive the change that would keep them safe. Asian Americans and other minorities have taken steps backward because of failed leadership, and people need to express their anguish over events like those in Atlanta... Take a stand against bigotry and encourage your organizations to do the same... It’s time to speak up and take collective action.
CropCoat is showing that there are effective organic control options for insects and disease. Biological startup Crop Enhancement is growing its pilot trials on cocoa, coffee, and almonds and is setting the stage for entry into pistachios, apples, grapes, and higher-value vegetables like tomatoes, broccoli, and spinach.
This is the future: not a meatless one — not anytime soon — but one with less meat. I’m now sure of that. It’s the inevitable consequence of alarm over climate change, to which livestock farming contributes significantly. (Gates’s meatless musings were in the context of his new book, “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”)
It’s the moral of the McPlant. It’s also the takeaway from Nature’s Fynd, whose story is not just a parable of innovation and imagination but also a glimpse into the ever more muscular push for alternative protein sources and the fleetly growing market for them.
Engineers from Gridtential Energy Inc. and Electric Applications Incorporated (EAI), supported by the Consortium for Battery Innovation (CBI), are working to further develop quick and safe ‘plug and play’ solar powered energy storage systems to meet the boom in demand for renewable, and secure, energy in US homes.
Bill Gates: Well, you know, I funded Impossible [Burger]. I funded Beyond. Breakthrough Energy has a bunch of new ones, including Nature’s Fynd, which is super interesting because they use fungi to actually do the protein production, and it looks like it’s very, very efficient. You know, every industry is subject to competition. So put aside climate change. If somebody can make ground beef that tastes as good for a lower price, you know, is that un-American? Do you really have to kill a cow? I mean, I don’t know. Some people find it fun. Some people find that unattractive.
Crop Enhancement, a maker of sustainable crop protection products, today announced the results of pilot trials on coffee and almond trees. Crop Enhancement's solution, CropCoat, takes a different and biological approach than traditional chemical pesticides. Rather than trying to control pests with harsh chemicals, CropCoat coats crops in a non-toxic film to camouflage them and mitigate damage from insects and diseases.
Chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart failure are significant burdens on health-care systems around the world and afflict a significant and growing fraction of the global population (potentially 60 per cent of the US adult population and nearly 40 per cent of the UK adult population). In fact, the cost of managing these chronic diseases already drives a significant majority of health-care expenditure in many countries (86 per cent in the US and around 70 per cent in the UK).
The current crisis underscores the societal urgency to tackle the growing public-health problem represented by chronic diseases. The failure of efforts to contain them has been a result of a complex morass of medical, behavioural, and socioeconomic factors that have proven difficult for traditional health-care delivery models to address. A solution here will require a bold rethinking of traditional models of health-care delivery that should incorporate new digital health-care solutions.
Nature’s Fynd, the food technology company with a new food offering cultivated from fungus found in the wilds of Yellowstone National Park, is releasing its first products for pre-order.
Pitching both a non-dairy cream cheese and meatless breakfast patties, Nature’s Fynd had managed to attract some serious investors, including Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management and the Bill Gates-backed investment fund, Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The company most recently raised $80 million in its last round of funding.
Because cows account for around 4% of all greenhouse gases, Gates has invested in two companies making plant based meat substitutes, impossible foods and beyond meat. But farming the vegetables used to make many meat alternatives emits gases as well, so Gates is also backing a company that's created an entirely new food source.
Bill Gates: This company, Nature's Fynd, is using fungis. And then they turn them into sausage and yogurt. Pretty amazing.
Andrew Chung of 1955 Capital speaks on technology's impact on the U.S.-China relationship at a virtual conference that included Secretary George Shultz, Secretary Henry Kissinger, and other transpacific experts.
Many of the world’s great challenges don't recognise borders and cause harm without regard for race, nationality or politics: how to grow the world’s food supply sustainably by billions of tons, deliver clean water to a billion people, save the 7 million lives lost annually due to air pollution, mitigate climate change, and effectively treat fast-growing diseases like heart disease, cancer and diabetes…
Consumers are increasingly aware of the role diet plays in their health.
"Globally, chronic disease accounts for more than 70% of all deaths annually, yet 80% of certain chronic conditions can be prevented through a healthier diet. Diet is the second highest risk factor for early death after smoking, and, interestingly, it's less about the intake of bad foods and more about the beneficial nutrients that are missing from our diets”
Recently, the Chinese American CPA Association invited Andrew Chung to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic and its many challenges. Chung, the founder and managing partner of 1955 Capital, provided remarks helpful to listeners both in China and the United States. The talks covered everything from health concerns to business strategies as related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there has been a drop in startups which has reduced employment opportunities across a variety of industries. Many businesses have been forced into budget cuts and employee furloughs because of the harsh economic times. After a virtual portfolio meeting with several company CEOs to discuss COVID-19 challenges, Andrew Chung, founder of 1955 Capital, provided the following takeaways for how startups can adapt to this new reality.
Andrew Chung, the founder and managing partner of the venture capital firm, 1955 Capital, has one of the strongest track records as a proponent of green businesses. In particular, Chung’s focus has long centered around the renewable energy and sustainable food and agriculture sectors. Over the past 15 years, Chung has invested in a number of these climate tech industries and supported entrepreneurs behind the green tech revolution.
Andrew Chung is the founder and managing partner of 1955 Capital, a venture capital firm founded in 2017 to invest in and help promote companies that address the developing world’s most pressing challenges, especially as they relate to energy, healthcare, food, agriculture, education and sustainable manufacturing. Chung has more than 15 years of experience in investing, including stints at Khosla Ventures and Lightspeed. He has served on a White House roundtable on advanced manufacturing and has advised global leaders on energy policy. Chung has served on the board of or advised more than 20 companies.
The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting many businesses in ways we could not have imagined even just a few weeks ago. Even with most states partially or fully reopened, shelter-in-place laws have slowed our economy, due to the shuttering of retail stores, restaurants, startups, and other businesses.
In some cases, these businesses have already failed or are on thin ice and unsure whether they can survive this extreme downturn. Andrew Chung has been here before
Recently, the 1955 Capital team organized a virtual portfolio company roundtable with 11 CEO’s discussing the current challenges in the COVID-19 environment, the need for strong leadership in this unprecedented crisis, and response strategies that they have undertaken.
Solving climate change depends, to some extent, on technological innovation.
The world’s leading climate authority, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published a landmark 2018 report highlighting the urgency of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The report outlines four potential pathways for reaching that goal. The pathways are vastly different, but one thing they have in common is a central role for new technologies, all of which fall under the growing category known as climate tech.
Amara Raja Batteries Limited and Gridtential Energy Inc, the inventor of silicon Joule bipolar battery technology, announced that they have entered into an agreement to collaborate on bipolar battery technology.
Under the technology evaluation agreement, Amara Raja Batteries and US-based Gridtential Energy will assemble and test silicon Joule bipolar reference batteries using the former’s active material to determine improvements in cycle life, energy density, battery efficiency, charging rates and manufacturability.
Heather Clancy of GreenBiz Group will host "This is ClimateTech," a webcast featuring Andrew Chung, the founder and managing partner of 1955 Capital.
