At NFX Bio we like to say biology is the most advanced technology on earth. Sometimes it makes me think an alien spaceship that crashed landed on earth and we are trying to figure out how this gizmo works, it's a pretty amazing technology but there is one technology that is even more advanced than biology, and it's very human. It's entrepreneurship. Because entrepreneurs can imagine the world as it should be. And being annoyed that the world today is not the world as they imagine, they use their passion and their grit to rip a hole in the universe and drag all of us kicking and screaming to the new universe they imagined.

They're trying to solve some of the biggest problems that we have: cure diseases, solve climate change, produce renewable chemicals and materials so our civilization will not be dependent on fossil fuels and be more sustainable. That gives you extra motivation and joy in finding, supporting, and helping companies grow in this space.

The Power of Platforms in Bio

Let's take network effects to Bio. At NFX we love to support scientist Founders and Mammoth is a great example of a company where all three Founders were scientists. They are brilliant but one way we've helped them is leveling up their thinking around business and defensibility. All our platform companies have the vertical platform but they also have products. So we have the platform and the products built on top of the platform. Mammoth's platform technology is based on the novel CRISPR system that you can use to detect any DNA or RNA sequence. Another system that they discovered is small Cas system that you can use to cure any genetic disease. The great thing about the company is, they have an unlimited number of indications and products they can create using that platform. So they can partner some of those indications or they can develop some of those indications. And the more product they create, the more data they have, the easier it is to create new partnerships with other pharma companies and the bigger the ecosystem becomes.

I met Trevor at Stanford when I was still working at Twist Biosciences and got really excited about what he was trying to achieve. I introduced him to my partners at NFX and he and his co-Founders were joined one of the initial accelerator groups. Later on when the paper came out of Jennifer Doudna's lab where they used CRISPR for diagnostics, the ability to detect any DNA or RNA sequence, I got extremely excited and I told Trevor, "Hey, this is a better IP, this is a better technology to solve the problem you're trying to solve." He was lucky enough to get the IP out of Jennifer's lab. And later on, two of Jennifer's star students, Lucas and Janice discovered more systems and wanted to start a company. So we brought all of them together and started Mammoth Biosciences to tackle not just the diagnostic part, but also the therapeutic side.