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
Cell-based chocolate. Addresses deforestation in equatorial regions.
In the U.S. alone we use 12 to 15 billion pounds of food packaging film annually, but less than 5% is recycled. Moreover, these plastic films contain PFAS (aka, “forever chemicals”) that leach into foods and have been linked to serious health risks. So far, sustainable alternatives to petrochemical film are either too expensive or […]
The global mining industry produces 100 billion tons of waste every year. Often, these waste streams represent environmental hazards, added costs and liabilities for operations, and contain valuable minerals. Athos Bio is developing bio-mineralization technology that mitigates this waste, transforming it into a medium for permanent carbon storage and the recovery of valuable mineral commodities. […]
Every year, 2 million people develop corneal blindness, but only about 200,000 undergo a corneal transplantation to regain their vision. Almost 13 million people are on waiting lists for donor tissue, and even if they obtain it, the rejection rate for corneal replacements climbs from 10% in the first two years to almost 50% by […]
Every year, pests destroy 20% to 40% of global crop yields despite widespread use of synthetic pesticides. We spend $100 billion per year on chemicals that perform poorly, kill pollinators, and have been correlated with cancer, endocrine disruption, and brain damage in human beings. Farmers will need better solutions to feed 9.7 billion people in […]
Fashion is among the world’s most wasteful industries. Textile production alone accounts for up to 10% of global carbon emissions – approximately the same as the steel industry. In the U.S., 85% of all clothes are landfilled or incinerated. Synthetic clothing fibers such as polyester and nylon are petrochemicals that can shed microplastics into our […]
Global demand for cement, a key ingredient in concrete, is expected to grow from 4.2 billion tons today to 6.2 billion by 2050. The construction industry relies on it to build everything from homes and buildings to roads and bridges to dams and seawalls. Cement, however, is responsible for almost 90% of concrete emissions. So […]
Why we invested: At a small networking event, the founders said softly to us: “we are working on a technology that can completely upend the entire sequencing industry.” We leaned in to listen; after all, the founders have been working the front lines during every major pivotal point in sequencing history: Illumina’s acquisition of Solexa […]
Why we invested: In the $220B 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 […]
Why we invested: The world’s biggest meat, produce, and animal health companies take vast sums of money and light it on fire on a recurring basis. They don’t want to do this, but due to consistent shortcoming in pathogen detection no one has managed to avoid the steady recurrence of recall and herd losses. It […]