Business for Good Podcast

Jun 01 2024 52

Business for Good Podcast artwork

Join host Paul Shapiro as he talks with some of the leading start-up entrepreneurs and titans of industry alike using their businesses to help solve the world’s most pressing problems. Whether it’s climate change, unsustainable agricultural practices, cyber threats, coral reef die-offs, nuclear waste storage, plastic pollution, or more, many of the world’s greatest challenges are also exciting business opportunities. On this show, we feature business leaders who are marrying profit and purpose by inventing solutions to both build a better world and offer investors a bang for their bucks.

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Which Came First: The Chicken or the Potato?

Jun 01 2024 36 mins

Many listeners of this show will be familiar with precision fermentation, or turning microbes into factories to produce proteins like those proteins that have historically been produced inside of chickens and cows. Think of companies whose founders we’ve had on, like Perfect Day and The Every Company. But, what if instead of using microbes as protein factories—and all the assoc

Premature Obituaries? Bruce Friedrich’s Optimism for Cultivated Meat

May 17 2024 59 mins

Upon reading his obituary, Mark Twain reportedly wrote that “the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Whether Twain actually wrote this or not, the reality remains that today the reports of the death of cultivated meat are indeed quite real. Yet Bruce Friedrich, the president of the Good Food Institute, is here to tell you that he believes such reports are not based on

Defying the Odds: Orbillion Bio Raising Capital for Cultivated Meat in 2024

May 10 2024 47 mins

If you follow the cultivated meat sector, you know that the last couple years have been tough. Some companies have gone under, others have gone into hibernation, and others have shed staff in cash-conserving layoffs. Major publications have published opinion column obituaries for this industry, yet the work goes on. Part of that work is that of Obillion Bio, a B2B cultivated meat c

The Past, Present, and Future of Cultivated Meat with UPSIDE Foods’ Uma Valeti

May 03 2024 55 mins

No cultivated meat company has raised more capital than UPSIDE Foods. In 2022, after having already raised about $200 million in previous rounds, the company raised another $400 million in a Series C round with a company valuation north of the coveted $1 billion unicorn status. No company in the space has garnered more media attention, both positive and critical, than UPSIDE Foods

Fishing for Progress in Asia: Avant Meats

Apr 26 2024 37 mins

Asia is leading the world when it comes to semiconductors, solar panels, wind turbines, and other technologies critical for the future. In a time when several US states are seeking to ban the sale of cultivated meat, Asia seems to be leaning into the technology, and one of the most mature companies in the space there is Avant Meats. Founded in Hong Kong in 2018 and having raised a

Fishing for High-Margins in Cultivated Seafood: BlueNalu’s Path to Scale

Apr 19 2024 42 mins

BlueNalu is one of the better-funded companies when it comes to cultivated meat. Having raised more than $100 million, including about $35 million toward the end of 2023—a notoriously difficult time to fundraise—their founder and CEO Lou Cooperhouse is optimistic about their path to success. But as you’ll hear in this episode, Lou isn’t working to compete against the commod

Is the Future of Cultivated Meat in Thailand? Aleph Farms is Betting on It

Apr 12 2024 33 mins

When you think about cultivated meat, Thailand isn’t exactly the first country that comes to mind. Sure, you may think about the US, Netherlands, Israel, and Singapore. But the Southeast Asian kingdom is where Israeli cultivated meat juggernaut Aleph Farms recently announced its first commercial factory will be. Having just received Israel’s first regulatory approval to sell c

Flying Cars or Electric Cars? Isha Datar’s Thoughts on Where Cultivated Meat Tech Stands Today

Apr 05 2024 42 mins

When the New York Times recently ran an opinion column declaring the infant fatality of the cultivated meat industry, Isha Datar, CEO of New Harvest, was quoted as saying of the sector, “this is a bubble that is going to pop.” Given that New Harvest is intended to promote and advance the field, what did Isha mean by this? She expounded on that thought in a 2,000-word commentary

Mark Post, A Decade After the First Cultivated Burger

Mar 29 2024 39 mins

In 2013, Dr. Mark Post shocked the world when he debuted the world’s first-ever burger grown from animal cells. Weighing in as a quarter-pounder, the burger carried a price tag of a mere $330,000—all of which was funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. A decade later, what does Mark think about the movement and the industry he helped birth? When his burger was debuted, a gra

Are Smaller Cultivators the Answer for Cultivated Meat’s Success? Niya Gupta Thinks So

Mar 22 2024 34 mins

Some of the companies in the cultivated meat space are betting that massive stainless steel cultivators—think 100,000L to 250,000L—are the path to commercialization. Niya Gupta, CEO of Fork and Good, is thinking smaller. She argues that there may be a more realistic path using a larger number of smaller tanks, void of the impellers that agitate the more conventionally used re