Startup Series: Wildtype

Today's guest is Justin Kolbeck, co-founder and CEO of Wildtype. Wildtype is a startup creating sushi-grade cultivated salmon, and they recently announced the completion of a hundred million-dollar series B funding round, which was the largest for a cultivated seafood company. I was excited for this one because it's clear that our current food system is not sustainable. It's a huge source of emissions, and we're going to have to feed billions of additional people over time. It's unclear today how we're going to do that, and especially do that in a way that is more sustainable with each other and with the planet that we rely on to support us and other life forms. Seafood, of course, is one of the largest categories of food, and Wildtype is one of the leaders in the cultivated seafood market, which made for a really interesting discussion. We talk about the origin story of the company and what led Justin without a background in this area to anchor here, the state of the cultivated meat/seafood landscape when they started and how that's evolved to today, and Justin's predictions for how the market will play out over time. We also talk about some of the key challenges in building the company, how to balance customer development with the technical work in the lab, and Wildtype’s plans in terms of go-to market strategy, which sources of capital they have used to date, and which they anticipate using over time. Enjoy the show! You can find me on twitter at @jjacobs22, @mcjpod, and @mcjcollective, and via email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests. Episode recorded May 3, 2022