Today, we're talking about the rise of the scientist founder and what it takes to go from the lab to the world of star I'm Gita Ryanitz from NFX Bio, and this is the NFX podcast. Today, we're announcing NFX Bio. And today, I'm sitting around with Omri Drori, PhD, and with Doctor Emily Lepruse, of Twist Biosciences, and we are here to announce what we're doing. You know, the last 50 years has been about software, but the next 50 years are gonna be about bio.
And In particular, the combination of information, technology, and bio, the costs have come down so much that now we can address so many different industries and product and progress with bio that we could never do before. And so NFX Bio is our group that's dedicated to those type of investments. And it's the Pete seed and seed investor for this industry. And we are bringing a series a level infrastructure and team to invest in pre seed and seed. We've been scientists founders ourselves.
We've been in your shoes, and so we know every aspect of the business you're in. When you take money from NFX bio, you're getting people who understand the science. Alright? That the connectivity to the right people. They know how it works. They've been in your shoes. And that's really the difference. Good to see you guys. Good to see you. So, Omry, please introduce yourself so people can know more about you. Well, it's great to be here. So, my name is Emily.
I did my PhD in Tel Aviv University, and then they got the Fort White Fellowship and came to Stanford for postdocs. So I'm a scientist, like, many of the founders we Pete. Yeah. Then start a company called Genum Compalo. That company Beller software for bioengineers, and I was lucky enough to get the investment from an effects. This is how I know the team there so well. Yeah. I rent that company for five and a half years. So, you know, I've been in the trenches and I know how it feels.
I was lucky enough back in 2016 to get acquired by Twist Bioscience, and I've been working with Emily ever since. I served as a head of corporate development Morgan Twist Bioscience two and a half years and then left just before the IPO and started tech bio, a fund that invested at the proceed stage in companies at the data section of Beller Technology, and NFX was a big part of my fund. And then now I'm happy to be part of NFX Bio.
And You got to meet Emily because, Emily acquired your 1st company genome compiler. Yeah. But, actually, we met each other years before that. I think both of us were in the room for the first synthetic biology, Cymba, conference, back in, I guess, 2013, even before she started Twistba Science, we've been interacting from the I still remember the first office of, twist, and we've been interacting ever since.
Fantastic. And so at Doctor Emily Leproust, I'd love for people to get to know you as well. Can you give us some of your background? Yes. Happy to do it. So I'm Annie Lacruz. I was born in France. I'm I'm an American I studied chemistry, and then I got my PhD in organic chemistry and DNA synthesis from the University of Houston. So I learned English in Texas although I didn't pick up the the accent. But I can tell you that one person is y'all and 2 or more is all y'all. So I do know that.
Saw my PhD went directly into industry, at the R and D for 13 year in a big company, and, was really drawn to the commercial And, I was lucky enough that my 2 co founders at risk, they had invented the the Twist technology, and they were looking for a CEO to do everything that was healed and I am the victim. It's been a a great partnership since then. Could we get a little more detail, Emily, on your journey from Pete to founder and CEO of Biosciences because you've gone from this idea at IPO.
It's not worth about $10,000,000,000. It's an incredible store. What were your steps? Just a little more detail on that would be So I did my PhD. I realized very quickly that I did not want to go in in academia. So I skipped the post, step, and I found in R and D And for 13 years, I did R and D, and I went up from bench chemist all the way to director application and chemistry, R and D. And I was very good at kept launching products.
Those were doing really Beller, but I did not enjoy my passion was more on the commercial side. Actually, I wanted to be sell side or the marketing side. And that's when when the Beller, my co founder, had the idea for Twist, they needed someone to take care of everything that was corporate and commercial So all the fundraising of the corporate strategy, the commercial strategy, they needed someone to do it. You just discovered that you loved that.
I knew I loved it because I was in R&D, actually, I was on the road quite a bit to promote and to explain those new products, to customers. And I realized that even though I was very good at making the product, I enjoyed the selling of it. I enjoyed communicating around that product much more than the R and D. Even though I had a 13 years R and D career, for many years before I switched to it. I knew that I wanted to be on the commercials.
What's that like if a scientist is out there and they're trying to figure out if they're like and that they like both. What what's the indication? At the end of the sales meeting, you have more energy. You get up earlier in the morning to go do sales calls and you do to go do research. What are some of the detailed signs that you have that personality. To be a great CEO, you need to love selling an idea. Right? If you're to be a great scientist, you have to be fully grounded in reality.
It's all about publishing that paper. And so you need to make sure that all your data is perfect. You have to be to sweat the details of the nitty gritty because that paper is going to be peer reviewed. And so if you can't prove everything a plus b equals c, it's not going to work out. That's the scientist's life. In the entrepreneur life, it's sort of about selling the dream.
And so you don't like that sales process of selling an idea, then you're not going to enjoy the life of SEO because, you know, what the CEO has to do is basically you're selling stuff and to sell the stock. You need to have a vision. You have to sell. You have to bring people onto your vision, and so you have to sell that idea. And that vision is a little less precise. Than the actual science that's behind the vision, and you have to be comfortable with both languages communicating in both ways.
Absolutely. There is a similarity though between scientists and see you. There's a similarity, though, between scientists and entrepreneurs that you are not daunted by the impossible right, to be assigned to, you know, you have to push the boundary. So you have to to set yourself a goal that almost sounds impossible from the outside. It's the same with an entrepreneur. I mean, when you go out there, you're trying to build something that has not been done Morgan.
And so that ability to view an outcome that that has never been made. And that is similar. Yeah. And I want to reassure PhDs that are thinking about being founder what I want to say is 3 things, right, is 1, Pete, you learn how to learn. That's what you do all the time. You have to learn new things new methods all the time. 2nd, you learn how to design scientific experiment and learn from it. And third, especially in biology, you learn how to fake and pick yourself up and try again.
That's what you do again again in the lab, but you still have this optimism and greed that in 5 year, you get your PhD, and that translates very well to open those. All three of those elements are very similar to what it's like to be a founder. And the other thing is that, look, you don't need to be a CEO founder. Right? You might have the personality to be, you know, the CSO or some other part of a founding team, you can still be a founder. You don't have to be the the CEO of a company.
You could also be a founder. No. That that's right. To me, a litmus test to be a CEO is that if you do not like to rent money, do not be a CEO. Find something Beller. It can be the CTO, CSO, like you say, there's lots of other roles. CEO, you know, in my view, in order to be a great CEO, you need to love fundraising because it's gonna be a big part of your life. We're using the term tech bio here today. But people are maybe more used to the term biotech or synbio, or why are we calling it?
Can you remind us all why we're calling a tech bio instead? Yes. So I think we're moving from traditional biotech to Morgan technology and biology, hence tech bias. You're saying information technology combined with bias. Yeah. And it's driven mainly by 3 main forces one is biology is getting digitized with technologies like DNA sequencing, DNA synthesis, where twist is, the world leader and sensors turning data from analog data into digital.
And that is the second now because the biology is being digitized, you can use computational tool traditional computational tools and emerging machine learning AI tools to make sense of the data.
And third, we're moving from a world where people are pipetting manually in the lab to high throughput automation at scale that really helps create a new categories of companies go through the design Beller test cycle more rapidly creating product faster and looking more like tech companies than biocompany. So Emily and Omri, just express to me again as you've done in the past. We're why are you doing this? Like, why are you so excited about this space? I'm so excited about DNA technology.
In the fifties, you wanted to be in aeronautics in the the sixties in semiconductor in the seventies and eighties and computer in nineties in the software. I mean, 2000, you had to be in mobile. And my view, this is the decades of biology starting now. IOG has been so hard for so long that it took a lot of time to get somewhere. It would cost so much money that you could only apply biology to drug development.
And now because of lower cost sequencing, lower cost of synthetics, because of automation, of computing, you can do biology at a much lower cost. And what that means is that the number of opportunities are much broader than just drugs, and you can still do drugs, but you can do those things. And that's what I'm excited is right now, we are living in the era of biology. It is the place to be And what we need to realize is biology is the most advanced technology on earth.
It's not a technology that actually works. It's been around for at least 4000000000 year it James, you know, you can see biology from space. All the air we breathe came from biology, all the food we Pete, comes for biology. Everything we care about comes for value. And right now, it's in the intersection of many technologies that are going up financially in the capability, whereas DNA synthesis, DNA sequencing, computation, automation. It's all coming together right now.
And you have a chance to impact the biggest markets and the most important markets. As we said, things that, you know, you can help people. You can cure people. You can feed people. You can provide for people. So this is the best place to be in. I'm so excited just to be part of it. So, Omri, so what are you looking for in tech bio companies right now?
So what we like to invest is a platform companies, where they have a core technology, especially, core biological technology and IP that allows them to create many application, not just one small molecule for one indication. We want something that help you create a lot of different diagnostics a lot of different therapeutic. This is the things that really excite us. Yeah. Because traditionally, you've had companies that got quite big just doing one therapy Morgan agricultural application.
But increasingly, because information technology is becoming more a part of the core technology infrastructure of these companies. You can now start to spread the same, the core bio IP across multiple indications, multiple use cases. And you can look at many examples. If you look at, some recent and very interesting example like Moderna, they have a core messenger and a technology and delivery technology. Right? And they're using it to create not just one vaccine.
And by the way, it took them today to design the vaccine after the COVID genome was published. But they can do many vaccines. They can do also a vaccine for cancers and other things. This is the kind of companies we like. Like Mammoth Bioscience where they have core IP around Cas14, Cas5, and CAS system used for diagnostic, and you can use it both to create many different diagnostics by changing the guide RNA, but also creating many different therapeutics.
And, Emily, as you look at companies, what are you looking for? What are some of the things that excite you? Yeah. So what excites me is that this 3 aspect of the market, the technology, and the people you won't have I'm exactly with funders that are going after a very big market. I think life is too short to look like small Beller. And then I'm excited about the kind of technology that are being developed to make a better mass trap to go after that market.
And then, ultimately, one very important part is the funding team and the crucial that they creating in the company. And so those are the 3 aspects I'm I'm looking for. It's so funny because it it just demonstrate how me and Emily think the What I tell founders is, you know, there is 3 slides, you know, you need to show me. And the three question that we'll ask you is, 1, is it big enough? Is the market big enough? 2nd, do you have any magic and is this magic defensible?
Is your technology is really magical in helping people? And third, are you the right team to execute this magic technology on huge market to make something special. So again, me and Emily, you know, it's similar. To be on what you said earlier, Omar, this true that money is a a community, there's a lot of money available. And so if you're a founding team, it's almost certain that you can be funded.
And then, therefore, you have an opportunity and a responsibility to make sure that you pick the best money because I mean, when I first, you know, started doing fundraising, I was naive, and frankly, I thought I'll take anything. I'll take any money and make capital. But it turns out that you have to be very careful because not all capital is created the same and you want to make sure that you pick investors that add a differentiation compared to others.
And so founders should be very careful in which money they they take. Exactly. And I shared the same thing, you know, giving you think, every money is green, but they soon figure out that a big difference between good and bad and the one thing I promise myself is never to be the kind of bad investors. And, you know, it's the oath that doctors make, you know, at least never ever cause harm. Do we have a very developed sort of bio, you know, ecosystem for investing?
I mean, it seems to me that we've been developing the infrastructure, the VC infrastructure, for 50 years for software and information technology, and yet we're not nearly as developed, particularly at the seed and and proceed stages for bio. Yes. And, Emily can talk a lot about the later stage, especially in the early stage, there are not a lot of capital, especially for those companies in the tech by industry that, both tech and buy.
Right now, if you're a scientist and you want to commercialize a technology, you have very few option. You can go to a very few, incubators that will take a lot of your equity or just recently the the accelerators got into bios. So I was told that almost 15% of who I see, every batch is now bio.
If not Morgan there are some accelerators like indie buyer that gives you lab space and some small amount of money, but to really get your IP out there to see that it actually works to get the proof of concept. You need a few $1,000,000. It's very hard to to find. Emily, what first steps would you suggest to potential founders to turn their idea or their research into a startup. My advice would be to 1st ever very crisp story.
And it's interesting because when you're scientist, you, again, you want everything based in fact, but when the first time you sit down with an investor, Beller you, tell me your story. So they actually are looking for a story. And so that that is the the first thing to do is is make sure that you can articulate a story that will get people excited to partner with you. And so you like to cover the element of the the market, the technology, and the people but that's what you have to think about.
It's it's not about a business plan, nobody cares. You know, people want to be almost emotionally involved in in the story because in the source, they they have a lot of opportunities, and they don't want to make the 10th PD L1 in EBITDA. They actually want to do something that is exciting and new too. And so that that's really my first advice. What format does that storytelling take? Is that an email that you send to someone? Is that a tweet that you tweet out?
Is that PowerPoint deck that you send to someone? What are the formats in which you communicate that story. Yeah. So in my view, it has to be in person. You know, one one is even through Zoom is signed, but nobody's to invest on a pro or a one pager.
However, we do need that pro point that the one pagers do to hook people to get the meeting, but but the Beller, maybe the only way to really pitch your idea in person, you cannot cold call, investor, you need to find a way to get the hot introduction. There's, again, a lot of opportunities out there. And so you need to find someone that's going to get you in the door, someone that's gonna put you on the top of the Pete.
And so go through your network, check the tree and get that how to introduction. And, you know, investors sometimes they ask you to send a deck in advance. If you can't resist that, do in my view because they're gonna look at the back and make their own first impression. And in my view, they truly hear that story from you first. So I would suggest getting in front of someone through hot introduction and have them Pete. Let's look from you directly.
Totally agree with Emily, and I would also add that you want to be in the development cycle in the research and development because, especially with biology, the research, might take anywhere between a month for to forever. So you want to start a company. Best case is after you Pete reviewed your research and you know that the basic biology work before you go around and try to develop it.
If we're talking to the biopounders, what does their seed company need to prove in order to get an a ramp or to get a seed ramp? Do they need to have already taken the IP out of the university, or should they come to us before that happens? Do they need to have a full team, or should they come to us before that? How far up the ladder approved should they try to go before they go out and do a Pete seed or a seed wrap? The higher the Beller.
We've been helping companies get the IP out of universities already. We've done it for several We've held companies where the team was not Pete, and they need a a CEO or a Cbo. We were doing it all the time. Obviously, the more proof points you had, it's easier it is.
But, again, we're investing in all stages of the c precede where it's just the scientist with the idea, a seed where the entire team is there, and they need some Beller, maybe get the IP out and get the proof Flint for the a round, then we even do early a's. What, what geographies do you find yourself deploying most of the capital in. For me, it's mainly at the Bay Area in Israel, but we are not limited by geography.
You know, wherever there are great companies, we'll be And what sort of exceptional support do you think that, tech bio company scientists founders should be looking for from their pre seed and seed What what should they be looking Morgan investors like us?
As I said, first, do no harm by mainly help telling the story Beller with the fundraising, helping with hiring, helping with introduction to, the right follow-up investors, Beller in setting up the scientific advisory board is very important for companies in the industry. Once you've built a company once, there's a lot of things that sounds difficult or insurmountable for founders, which are actually easy.
It's happened many times where I know that I've spent 5 minutes with the founder, and I know that I've saved the a month of work just because having done it before, you can provide some very quick pointers that save time. Yeah. That's Magic. And I think it's very important to also psychological help for the founders. You know, we've been there, so we know how hard it is. So just supporting them, never get for us understanding the journey they're going through. You know, we've been there.
We understand what you're going and will support. You know, so given that information technology is coming together with biotechnology. So as we get this tech bio, what are some of the areas that are now lighting up are some of the things that are now gonna be possible areas where we're gonna be investing? So many things.
So what I'm really excited about are things like a cellular therapies you know, there are new technologies now where you can design immune cells to go after cancer where it's the first time we actually seen people getting cured from cancer. And this is like coding in living cells. It's pretty amazing. There are advances that are being made every day in the field of longevity. We can live longer healthier life. And, again, if you look at COVID, the biggest risk factor is how old you are.
So, you know, we want to solve the underlying problem. We are super excited about moving to a more sustainable world, renewable, chemical, renewable materials, all exciting. You know, I got to know you guys starting about 5 years ago, almost 6 years ago now when we invested in genome compiler. And so we're not pretending here that the software investor at NFX are the great bio investor. We're bringing you guys in because you guys are the great bio investors.
We can help out on the business side, strategy side, sales, things like that, finance but actually understanding the science and having walked in the scientist founder's shoes, you guys have been I mean, so that's that's one of the major things we're doing. It's so much fun to work with you and to talk. We have a separate partners meeting together. We talk about just the bios company and the the tech bio companies. That's that's the process that we're building.
So getting back to what's different about NFX BioPharma founder, What are some of the things I should know about NFX Biof? I'm thinking about raising money. What we are aiming to achieve is to have the kind of investors we wish we had because the problem with our industry, what we call tech bio, is that if you go to tech investors, you know, you're the bio company. If you go to bio investor, then you too much tech for that. So you want the investors that really understand this new industry.
You want investors that has, like, the Vanda diagram that we share that, you know, being academia, so we understand the science. We can make our own mind really quick. We've been operators, so we know the pain you're going through. You know, we've been in a trenches. And then we Beller company in the Emily case $10,000,000,000 and, you know, we we know what it means. Now as investors, you know, we can make our own mind quickly.
We are leading runs, you know, and then we just help you be as successful as we can. All of us at NFX have been founders ourselves, and you guys, in particular, have been founders and scientists the in the tech bio area. And so by living in their shoes, we can help with every aspect of the business. Right? That's the goal we come to the work of building a company from the founder's perspective. Right? We don't see your company as a cap table. We don't see it as a spreadsheet.
You know, there's lots of financial investors out particularly in series B and series C. But we see the building of these companies as a unique expression of the founders, where where their partner That's really where we're trying to go with this. You know, the other thing is that we've got this completeness of the team.
Not only do we have Omri and then we have Greet And then we have, you know, Emily here, but we've got myself, we've got Gigi, we've got Morgan, we've got Pete, we've got the NFX Guild, the infrastructure that comes along with that, help with PR, help hiring, help with human resources and culture building, all the things that are required to build a company. And so there's this completeness of our team. We've got a big team.
We're not investing at that seed stage, that Pete seed stage in many James, but we still have the infrastructure of a series a first. That's gonna be hopefully helpful to vote. You know, Omri, you received a capital from investors when you were first starting out. And now you've been investing Pete seed with your tech bio fund. You know, how do you see the ecosystem changing right now for biotech Beller think right now it's, the golden age of, biotech invest.
COVID has shown the world how important it is to invest in things like therapeutics and vaccine This is what we like about this industry. Every who invest in really matters. You know, they like to say in Silicon Valley that our investment changed the world for the but, you know, this is exactly what we do. Investing companies that help heal people either of the rapid diagnostic help feed people with ag and food and then help support people with the renewable chemicals and materials, etcetera.
So all our investment It's not just impact investment. We are talking about the biggest markets in the world, you know, biotech, food, materials, energy, technology, they're all coming together. It's, super exciting. Well, we all agree Pete. And that's why we're doing an effects bio, and we're doing an effects bio with you because of your character and because your experience. I know that we're just incredibly excited to be launching this and can't wait to see what the next 20 years holds.
Thank you so much. No offense to, to Google, but It's a lot more exciting to work on some DNA based technology than to work on auto feel of, for optimizing us. Agreed. Alright, guys. You've been listening to the NFX podcast. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. For more information on building iconic technology companies, visitnfx.com.