The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Biology & Technology - by IndieBio

Entrepreneurship
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March 22, 2016

Looking back at Demo Day of IndieBio ’s second class on February 4th, one of the most striking features is diversity of ideas and innovation.

Startups ranged from the future of food, advanced protein and immune system sequencing, consumer products, and more. Advances in research and discovery are pushing boundaries across the board in the life sciences, and we have every reason to believe this is just the beginning of the acceleration.Judging by the response the fourteen startups pitching received, it seems like the rest of the world agrees. As this class wrapped up, there had already been $10M+ cumulatively raised. Leading the way is Memphis Meats, who closed their seed round of $2.7M before even presenting their lab-grown meat at Demo Day. Multiple other startups have raised $2M+, with the rest of the class hot on their heels with their own deals.The hustle of this class doesn’t stop with investors. One of IndieBio ’s favorite mottos is “sales solves everything”, and multiple companies are out there selling and getting their products in the hands of consumers as you read this. Amino Biolabs and Nerd Skincare have already been well received by the market, with a sold out Indiegogo campaign and products in retailers like Birchbox, Amazon, and more. New Wave Foods, makers of the first ever plant and algae based shrimp, is on the way into the kitchens of Google HQ and sushi rolls of L’Chaim Sushi, the first time shrimp has ever been able to be part of a kosher menu. Bringing ideas out of the lab and to the customer has been a critical piece of every company’s success. They’re showing that biotech startups have the flexibility and business know-how to iterate and pivot to truly address unmet needs.The other emphasis of all fourteen IndieBio companies is collaboration. In just four short months, multiple teams have forged partnerships with industry leading institutions. As Koniku works towards making supercomputers with biological neurons, they have partnered with IT giant Cisco to leverage this new technology to do advanced computation. On the clinical research side, Girihlet has been working with UCSF and New York Blood Center to expand their Immuno Map to measure the immune system and predict disease. By working across ecosystems, these startups are quickly testing ideas and technology while connecting biotech to multiple markets in new ways.Underlying all these companies is the theme of innovation and disruption. Vali Nanomedical, in partnership with Intelligent Material Solutions, has imaged tumors on X-ray and CT scans for the first time ever. In the field of neuroscience, Truust Neuroimaging is making real-time holographic images of the brain that display real-time energy flow which can diagnose and predict brain-related disease. These companies illustrate the diversity of disruption happening in biotech right now. As new discoveries in research are made and startups learn to go lean, the opportunities for creating groundbreaking technologies and startups will only grow and usher in the next-generation of biotech entrepreneurs. How do you see the landscape of biotech changing? Can the established leaders of the field adapt to create breakthroughs of their own?

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