Bacterial biofilm will grow wherever there is moisture. That’s fine, until it becomes unruly: That’s when we call it biofouling. In offshore oil rigs, it’s a maintenance nightmare; in maritime shipping it’s a drag on efficiency; in industrial pipes and food processing, it’s a contamination hazard. All industries combined, biofouling is nearly $100 billion worth of pain. 

All of the major anti-biofouling strategies today are to kill bacteria, but they’re ineffective because the enemy compensates by becoming stronger or evading it. Nobody on the front lines would say that this is a solved problem. 

In all our years of investing, we have never seen a more potent and versatile anti-biofouling agent than what Disperse Bio has discovered. Their internationally-patented peptide, discovered in sea anemones, can effectively stave off biofilm at a nanomolar concentration, with no toxicity to humans or the environment. Imagine, two Advil-sized caplets of their peptide can protect the hull of a cargo ship from $80K/year of hull maintenance and $2M/year of additional fuel costs. The investment implication here is that the very potent active compound becomes a high-performance ingredient, commanding extremely high margins. 

With both desalination pilot testing and ship hull tests underway, we’re expecting to see revenue in the next few months. If you have portfolio companies or LPs that deal with any kind of biofouling, it’s worth meeting Disperse Bio.