Featured Trends
We’ve sliced and diced our portfolio into distinct “trends” that define our edge.
Climate 100
We are pleased to report that as of April 2021 the SOSV Climate Tech 100 have raised $1.85 billion from investors and have a market cap of $5.65 billion. The average company is four years old. SOSV (our parent fund) has invested $89 million in these companies and was in most cases the first investor, though we continued investing through early rounds.
IndieBio has never been one to shy away from the riskiest and most impactful investments for our planet. In fact, we embrace them.
Female Founder
Boosting female representation in the startup world is an ongoing challenge, but we’re dedicated to gender balance, not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because we would be dismissing impressive companies otherwise. We’ve found that more gender balance leads to better workplace culture and better ideas being exchanged.
Future of Food
It’s not just that we can make meat and fish in the lab, or with mushrooms and chickpeas. It’s not just that AI can predict the best plant ingredients to make the best tasting milk and yogurt. And it’s not just that yeast can be fermented to produce the healthier and better food preservatives. We’re diving deep every day into the foods that will satisfy novelty-seekers and conventionalists alike.
We’re putting big bets on the newest technologies and trends we think are ahead of the curve.
Future of Medicine
Medicine ain’t what it used to be. Today, bloodletting, skull-drilling and giving children cocaine for toothaches are relics of the past. Tomorrow, so too will addictive opioids, chemotherapy, and psychiatric drugs that are non-selectively bathing our bodies in chemicals.
The future of medicine is an exciting one, and we’re excited to share the most exciting technologies that enable the next wave of medicine and healthcare.
Impact
Our mission has always been Human and Planetary Health from the beginning, so it’s hard to say which of our companies are “impact” companies (in some ways, they all are).
Here, we narrowed down the startups that are directly addressing sustainability issues, improving public health, mitigating inequality, and democratizing access to infrastructure and technologies.
New Frontiers
Raising Now
Every season of the year, a new batch and about one-sixth of our alumni are in raise mode. These companies are currently raising and would love to talk to interested investors. We can set up those meetings or you can contact the companies directly.
Sustainable Solutions
In the $10B copper mining industry, “heap leaching” of waste rock with low concentrations of ore has become a standard practice. Heap leaching works in two ways: 1) sulfuric acid is sprayed on top to trickle through the heaps, and 2) natural microbes in the heaps also help dissolve the copper mineral into solution. It’s been widely […]
Today, one ton of conventional fertilizer covers about 20 acres. What if, from the same raw materials, we could make fertilizers that covered 20,000 acres? Farm Minerals started with biological micronutrient minerals – Zn, Mn, Cu, Fe, and Co. Farmers don’t spend a lot on micros, perhaps only 7% of what they spend on macros, […]
California Organic makes the world’s first green ammonia that is California-certified organic. Already in market and growing rapidly, our organic ammonia is made from farm & ag wastes via a bulk fermentation bioprocess. Until today, all organic agriculture has used nitrate fertilizers, which have several inefficiencies. Nitrates are in slurries and so can’t go into […]
Cereswaves’ revolutionary Energy Pang device delivers the world’s first “electrofertilizer,” boosting crop and animal health and growth. Ultra low energy, it works by altering the water in plants and, in turn, transpiration of water through the plant. The Energy Pang wavelength is so safe, it’s used in medical applications — even on premature infants. Cereswaves […]
Welcome to the era of “Direct Air Utilization.” You all know Direct Air Capture, and you all know Carbon Utilization. In a single step, SpiralWave radically brings down the energy and the costs of transforming the carbon in air and the hydrogen in water into hydrocarbon fuel. Unlike competing DAC and CCUS technologies and traditional […]
Farmers spend nearly $230 billion every year on herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers designed to increase crop yields. However, most of these chemicals are leached into the environment rather than absorbed by crops, causing pest resistance to biocides, biodiversity loss, and a litany of public health impacts. Somehow, the world needs to wind down agrochemical use […]
Discarded food accounts for 8-10% of greenhouse gas emissions and costs the global economy $940 billion per year. Upcycling surplus food is therefore critical to decarbonizing the food supply chain and curbing its massive appetite for water and deforested land. Terra Bioindustries has developed a negative-emissions platform for upcycling brewer’s spent grain, a beer byproduct […]
Maritime shipping, aviation, and trucking will account for at least a tenth of global CO2 emissions by 2030 and cannot be electrified anytime soon. To meet EU emissions standards, cargo operators are already ordering methanol-powered ships. However, green methanol is currently produced using energy-intensive processes, resulting in a greenish fuel that can’t compete with oil […]
Over 53 million tons of electronics are discarded every year, wasting $57 billion worth of recoverable metals. Typically incinerated, this e-waste releases toxic fumes, causing people serious health problems. Only 17% of e-waste is recycled because existing methods are too expensive, energy-intensive, and pollutive. BioMetallica has developed the first eco-friendly biotechnology for recovering palladium, platinum, […]
Oil wells are not the first thing you think of when you think of lithium sources, but pumping oil out of the ground actually requires a lot of water, either to fracture the rock or to push out the oil of old wells. That water is often locally sourced from deep underground, and has to […]