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.
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.
When a tiny mechanical insect achieved flight in the summer of 2012, its wafer-thin wings flapping almost invisibly at a rate of 120 times per second, it was the culmination of an ambitious engineering effort.
The first controlled flight of the RoboBee in the Harvard Microrobotics Lab of Prof. Robert Wood, relied on hard-won breakthroughs in design, materials, and manufacturing.
Startup Nature’s Fynd of Chicago, has discovered a low-carbon method of producing mycoprotein using a fungi strain sourced from Yellowstone National Park. The “Fy” fungi protein is grown in heated chambers fitted with shallow trays, instead of large bioreactors used by many competitors; a process suited to urban factory production. This unique way of producing products like meat-free breakfast patties and dairy-free cream cheese has attracted investor interest.
Chicago-based Nature’s Fynd is using a strain of fungi that its chief science officer discovered in an acidic hot spring in Yellowstone National Park in the United States. While other mycoprotein companies use large bioreactors, Nature’s Fynd grows its fungi in heated chambers stacked with shallow trays—a low-footprint way of growing mycoprotein that the company says makes it well-suited to urban factories.
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.
"Pilot wants to revolutionize the performance and reach of AGM battery technology, and we share that goal," said Gridtential CEO John Barton. "This is a great opportunity to bring the best engineering minds and materials in the industry to that common mission: to make the best performing and most recyclable battery in the world for energy storage systems."
"Gridtential is addressing key challenges in the future of transportation and energy storage systems. High-performance, long-lasting batteries will power tomorrow's mobility in dense urban areas, especially in developing economies," said Andrew Chung, founder and managing partner at 1955 Capital. "We're eager to introduce Silicon Joule to suppliers and other partners who can help Gridtential bring this vitally important technology to markets around the world."
Crop Enhancement is one company working to help fill in some of those gaps that could make biopesticides more accessible to more farmers. Their latest product, CropCoat, is applied via spray which coats the leaves and binds to the plant’s surface. This creates a hard layer of film making it uninhabitable to insects that doesn’t leave behind a chalky appearance some other products might — and the film is entirely biodegradable.
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”
