Growing Success

From Idea to Revenue

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 ~ We're making steady (and growing!) progress at Phytelligence, the WSU spin-out providing better fruit, trees, and services to commercial growers and nurseries. We closed our initial funding round with more than 70% of the funding coming from our customers and partners. We've added a top industry leader to our Board of Directors. And this week we received our first revenue.

World Food Day

The Challenge of Feeding the World

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 ~ October 16 is World Food Day, established to raise global awareness of wide-spread hunger all over the world. Many organizations are today calling attention to this most basic human right—to have enough to eat.

The Institute of Food Technologists, for example, is highlighting the importance of industrial innovation in providing solutions to global hunger:

Just as society has evolved over time, our food system has also evolved over centuries into a global system of immense size and complexity. The commitment of food science and technology professionals to advancing the science of food, ensuring a safe and abundant food supply, and contributing to healthier people everywhere is integral to that evolution. Food scientists and technologists are versatile, interdisciplinary, and collaborative practitioners in a profession at the crossroads of scientific and technological developments.

The innovative scientists and researchers at Phytelligence are part of that global solution that will provide more food, of better quality, faster, to more people.

Phytelligence Commercialization

From Lab to Field

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 ~ Back in September WSU Professor Amit Dhingra, also CTO and Co-founder of Phytelligence, addressed a gathering of some of the state's larger growers and nursery owners. While the talk was primarily about some of the research in his lab, he also spoke about its commercialization for the benefit of our state's agricultural industry.

Here is a video of his 20-minute address:



The technology from the Dhingra Lab has been licensed to Phytelligence, and progress continues apace to make it available to our commercial partners. Genetic analysis services are available now, and the first tissue cultured fruit trees will be available in limited quantities in time for the 2013 planting season.

"So, What Are You Doing?"

"(These Days?)"

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~ I get asked this a lot. So, just as I did a year ago on my last lap around the sun, I'll write a quick update.

I'm still doing consulting and contract work, as well as working on some startups (of my own as well as others.) The best description that more or less braids all the strands? Entrepreneur-at-large, pitching in wherever there is opportunity to create or grow an interesting business from idea to revenue.

Some of my current projects are the same as a year ago. A couple didn't work out and had to be put down. There's also a few new ones:

Sweet Cherries

Smarter Cherries

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~ Many know that Washington State University (WSU) is a national leader in agricultural research. Not so many know that WSU researchers are working to solve immediate, practical problems for growers, for example, in sweet cherry propagation:

Imagine ordering a piece of cherry pie at a restaurant, and being told that your pie would be delivered in two or three years. On your way out the door, you’d probably tell the waiter, “That’s no way to do business!” Orchard managers, however, have to place their orders for sweet cherry trees two to three years in advance of receiving and planting them.

Phytelligence Web Site

Alive and Growing!

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Phytelligence plantlets growing
in optimized environment

 ~ Phytelligence is a startup that comes out of innovative hothouse Washington State University (WSU). We've been presenting the company to various groups and receiving a lot of interest.

It uses tissue culture techniques to make plantlets (small plants that orchard owners and vineyards plant). These plantlets can shorten by years the time until a grower has fruit to sell, and can at last start to recover the investment of buying and growing fruit trees. They're also vigorous, high quality, and genetically uniform, and we guarantee good results.

Phytelligence has also developed the know-how to propagate highly desirable and difficult materials such as the highly disease and virus-resistant G41 and G935 apple rootstocks.

Industry-leading genetic analysis services and contract growing and genetic work is also available.

Know anyone who needs help with their growing success? Contact us.

Phytelligence at NWEN

Pitch Video

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 ~ Here is the 5-minute presentation of WSU spin-out company Phytelligence I did at the NWEN First Look Forum back on October 18:



Web site coming soon.

Cellulosic Aviation Biofuels

Record USDA Grants to UW, WSU

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 ~ The announcement of the record grants for aviation biofuel research are exciting indeed and a great coup for biofuel researchers in the Pacific Northwest.

The 5-year grants, part of the Agricultural and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) are the largest ever from the USDA. USDA was surprised at the level of interest when the funding opportunity was announced. 63 groups expressed interest and 35 were selected to submit full proposals. Of those, 30 made application, and 8 finalists were invited to Washington to present their proposals. The 5 winners include the teams led by researchers from the UW and WSU, each of which received $40M in funding. Each team is a consortium of members; approximately 62.8% of the funding will go to land grant universities and 22.9% to industrial (business) partners, with rest divvied up among other universities, federal partners and one non-profit organization.

Programmatically, the 5 teams are all striving to develop sustainable biofuels, particularly for aviation, a pressing need also a focus of the Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest (SAFNW) initiative announced earlier this year. The teams have some research overlap in their proposals: 62% of the funding targets woody biomass and 25% perennial grasses, with the rest going towards sorghum and other feedstocks. None of the funded research seeks to repurpose food crops into biofuels.

Some challenges the teams will face in creating a sustainable biojet fuel:

• Building an energy industry in rural areas
• Developing viable lignin coproducts. (As the old joke has it, “You can make anything out of lignin, except money”)
• Tremendous variability in the lignocellulosic cell walls of different feedstocks (e.g. between hardwoods such as poplar, alder and the ubiquitous North American softwoods, especially the Northwest’s Douglas fir) and between the different parts of the plant: stem, bark, leaves, etc. There are many tradeoffs between ease and cost
• Cost-effective pre-treatment alternatives, including optimal chip or particle size, and the presence of dirt and other contaminants (especially from woody municipal solid waste)
• Feedstock development strategies
• Establishing viable supply chains from landowners to aviation fuel
• Determining feasible transportation logistics that optimize what is being transported, how, and how far
• Stakeholder/community/social outreach: the project is unique because of the extraordinary level of vertical integration required

"So, What are You Doing?"

"(These Days?)"

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~ I've been asked this, or questions like it, quite a bit lately. Perhaps, thanks to this lovely turnover economy, it's because many of us are changing positions, jobs or careers at a frenetic pace. Perhaps, unfortunately, it's because my LinkedIn page doesn't provide the simplest summary. Or perhaps it's because today's my birthday, and birthdays are a great time to ping friends and colleagues with such whazzup questions.

It's hard even for my close friends to figure it out; the line-up changes all the time. And indeed, I need several prosthetic memory devices (laptop, Droid, calendar, and many, many lists) to stay on top of it myself.

While I do consulting and contract work, what I really do is serve as a kind of entrepreneur-at-large, pursuing several opportunities where I can help turn the chaos of a general idea into a growing, successful business.

The current line-up? My favorites (that I can talk about):

Phytelligence to Present at NWEN FLF

First Look Forum of 12 Startups

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~ Phytelligence, a new biotech spin-out from WSU has been selected as one of 12 companies to present at the upcoming NWEN First Look Forum on October 18. between 150 and 200 people, primarily investors, are expected to attend.

Phytelligence is built on innovative intellectual property developed by WSU Professor Amit Dhingra and a sterling team of researchers to produce better micro-propagated fruit plantlets using tissue culture techniques. The team has successfully and repeatedly propagated many apple, pear, cherry, grape and strawberry cultivars using techniques that can be extended to other plants. Attributes of plantlets using Phytelligence technology that are valuable to growers include greater plant vigor and genetic uniformity. Plantlets also attain maturity more quickly, use less energy to produce, and cost less. Phytelligence is being built on sustainability principles, and has several innovative aspects to its business model.

More details to be announced in October.

The Merry Wines of Whitman

Yum

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~ A trip to Pullman is no longer complete without having a taste and picking up a few bottles at Merry Cellars, a winery located in the Port of Whitman complex right around the corner from the WSU campus.

Patrick Merry is the eponymous wine maker. I recommend the Tempranillo. The building has space and the right hookups to possibly be the future home of Phytelligence.

Blowing Down the Road

Wind Turbines Along I-90

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~ On the way to Pullman as part of my WSU gig. Close to midwifing a couple of biotech startups this month and next. I rather enjoy the view of the wind turbines about 10 miles west of Vantage, part of PSE's Wild Horse project.

Phytelligence

Smarter Plants

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~ Phytelligence is the first of two new companies I'm forming with researchers at Washington State University, stemming from my role there as Entrepreneur-in-Residence.

Phytelligence has a system of micro-propagation for fruit trees and other plants that produces higher quality plantlets in less time, in less space, and at lower cost.

Web site under construction; more details in coming months.

UW EIC Winners

3rd Annual Competition Best Yet

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~ It was a great afternoon at the Seattle Center Exhibit Hall for the culmination of the University of Washington's Environmental Innovation Challenge. 17 teams made it to the finals and were scored on their 1-page executive summary, a 2-minute stand-up pitch, the caliber of their exhibit hall demo, and the judges' assessment of the potential impact of their idea.

The first prize winner was Voltaic, maker of modular components for electric vehicle drivetrains, including motor, transmission, braking, and power electronics. The team installed their prototype in a Honda Accord donated from Burien Honda and showed how they could both power the car and brake it by running the motors backwards. Regrettably, we couldn't take it for a real test drive, but I'd sure like to see it out on the track to see what it can really do.

Entrepreneur-in-Residence

My Cougar Relationship

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I've started as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) at Washington State University (WSU), a part-time position to commercialize some of the many ground-breaking research results achieved by the staff and students of the University.

As state residents and many others know, WSU has its main campus in Pullman, in the southeast part of the state; however there are also campuses in Spokane, Vancouver, and the Tri-Cities. While I expect to travel to Pullman and elsewhere regularly, I mostly will be based in the Seattle area, and may sometimes be found in the WSU West office space in the 520 Pike Building at Pike and Sixth.

I've been speaking with many people at the WSU Research Foundation the last few months, and was out in Pullman back in September. A few years ago I also had the chance to pursue a RTD grant from the Washington Technology Center with some of the faculty during my time as President at Enerdyne Solutions. I'm excited to work with some of the brilliant folks at WSU, a top-10 US university in renewable energy research.

If you are interested in some of the available technologies or want to explore technology transfer opportunities, contact me.

Update: Changed the email contact address; apparently I had the wrong one. Sorry.