Month: September 2020

Facebook this morning launched a new app designed to make it easier for businesses to manage their pages and profiles across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger in a single place. The app, Facebook Business Suite, combines access to the business’s key updates and priorities, and offers a way to draft and schedule feed posts for both Facebook and Instagram, view insights and create ads.

To use the new app, business will first need to link their Facebook and Instagram business accounts, if they hadn’t already.

Once logged into Facebook, the Business Suite can be accessed on the desktop at business.facebook.com. On mobile, users of the existing Pages Manager App will see an option to join Business Suite instead. The app will also become available as a standalone download for both iOS and Android.

Image Credits: Facebook

Inside Business Suite, business owners will be able to see critical alerts, messages, comments and other activity taking place across Facebook and Instagram right in the new app’s homescreen. They can also set up personalized saved replies here, in order to respond to common customer inquiries.

The app offers tools for creating feed posts for Facebook and Instagram, scheduling posts, and provides insights on what’s working. Here, businesses can view their posts’ reach, engagement and performance across both Facebook and Instagram. They can also choose to create an ad to help boost that engagement and grow their audience, if needed.

Facebook says it’s initially building Facebook Business Suite with the needs of small businesses first, as so many have been forced by the pandemic to find new ways to reach customers and sell online. However, the long-term plan is to build out a set of tools that can be used by all businesses, including larger ones. The company aims to address that market sometime next year. Business Suite will also expand to include WhatsApp in the future.

Related to the news, Facebook published two surveys offering insights on small business trends. One, the monthly Global State of Small Business Report, produced in partnership with the World Bank and OECD, found that businesses that make more than 25% of sales online are more likely to be reporting higher sales this year, and are less likely to have laid off employees.

A second study details the impact of COVID-19 on consumer purchasing patterns and use of digital tools. Nearly half of respondents said they spent more money online overall since the outbreak, and 40% increased their use of social media and online messaging for product and business recommendations, Facebook says.

Of course, these fairly upbeat reports on the state of small businesses in the midst of the pandemic don’t provide the full picture. In the U.S., for example, Yelp is reporting that 60% of the U.S. businesses that closed due to COVID-19 won’t be re-opening. As of August, 163,735 of U.S. businesses have closed since the start of the pandemic, the report said, up 23% since mid-July.

These closures could impact Facebook as well, as the majority of Facebook’s advertisers are small and medium-sized businesses. But Facebook’s global nature protects it. Even if the U.S. loses more small businesses due to its mishandling of the pandemic, there are far more advertisers are outside the U.S. that Facebook taps into.

Facebook says the Business Suite will gradually roll out during the month of September. The app joins several others Facebook offers today for its business customers, including Facebook Pages Manager, Facebook Analytics, and Facebook Ads Manager. However, Facebook notes that its new Business Suite isn’t currently designed to serve those who use Ads Manager.

Rise, shine and build your business startup fans. It’s day four of Disrupt 2020, and this is your daily snapshot of just some of the heavy-hitters, events, breakout sessions and all-around opportunity that’s yours for the taking.

Looking for the complete lineup? You’ll find it in the Disrupt agenda. Note: unless otherwise stated, all times are PST. Kicking yourself for not jumping on the opportunity bandwagon? Simply buy a Disrupt pass here, and kick your regrets to the curb.

Buckle up, folks — you’re in for a great day.

Athleisure wear is one of the hottest trends in retail, and it’s certainly a popular work-at-home wardrobe during a pandemic. Head to the Disrupt Stage and join comedian/tech investor Kevin Hart and Fabletics’ Adam Goldenberg for Retail is in the Details. They’ll talk about the company’s future and the type of tech Hart may invest in next (9:05 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.).

Everybody loves robots, but not many people know more about them than Boston Dynamics’ Robert Playter. You’ll find him on the Disrupt Stage talking about the company’s transition from robotics research to commercial production. Don’t miss Putting Robots to Work (10:00 a.m. – 10:20 a.m.)

We trust you haven’t missed a minute of the always-thrilling Startup Battlefield pitch competition. Still, a reminder never hurts. Session four takes place on the Disrupt Stage. Don’t miss watching today’s cohort lay it all on the line for a shot at $100,000 (10:40 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.).

Okay folks this session, Under the Radar, is a big, big deal. Legendary VC and Silicon Valley force of nature, Benchmark’s Peter Fenton joins us on the Disrupt Stage for a rare interview. Topic? The future of startups and venture capital (11:45 a.m. – 12:05 p.m.).

Head to the Extra Crunch Stage for product development tips from current and former product heads at places like Facebook, Zoom, Slack, Hulu and Oculus. Zoom’s Oded Gal, Advisor’s Eugene Wei, Slack’s Tamar Yehoshua and Inspirit’s Julie Zhuo will discuss How to Iterate Your Product (11:50 a.m. – 12:45 p.m.).

Data security is everyone’s concern — from budding startup founders all the way up to the NSA. Don’t miss Spycraft and Cybersecurity and the opportunity to hear Anne Neuberger, head of the NSA’s new Cybersecurity Directorate. She’ll take to the Disrupt Stage and discuss cyber threats, disrupting foreign adversaries and helping you improve your own cybersecurity (1:00 p.m. – 1:20 p.m.).

Whew, that rundown should whet your appetite for the day ahead. Connect, inspire, collaborate and take advantage of all the tips, advice, tools and opportunity Disrupt 2020 offers.

Still standing on the sidelines? You have two full days left to Disrupt and reject regret. Buy a Disrupt pass right now.

Darkstore, the tech-driven fulfillment solution to enable e-commerce companies to offer same-day delivery, has just released a consumer-facing app called FastAF. Right now, the app is only available in Los Angeles.

FastAF is built on top of Darkstore, which already has relationships with a number of brands that store their products in Darkstores for same-day delivery. With Darkstore, companies like Nike, Adidas and Levis are able to offer same-day delivery to customers by storing their products inside Darkstore’s urban fulfillment centers. Currently, there are 550 Darkstores across 283 cities.

With FastAF, consumers can now order directly from those Darkstores for same-day delivery. FastAF currently offers 1,200 items from 170 brands. Fast AF has partnered with DoorDash to handle deliveries and a different company for returns. To return an item, customers can head into the FastAF app to request a return and then someone will come pick it up from you and take it back to the Darkstore fulfillment center.

Image Credits: Darkstore

While all of the products available on FastAF will come from a Darkstore, not all of the retailers featured in FastAF are Darkstore customers.

“We wanted to have a very good consumer experience out of the gate and use the demand to inform whether we should officially partner with those brands,” Hnetinka told TechCrunch. “The way we’ve chosen the categories and the products are really around what’s relevant in the times right now and what’s essential.”

FastAF features items like masks, hand sanitizer and soap, but also sneakers, sunglasses and other products. FastAF sells the products at MSRP but charges consumers fees related to delivery and fulfillment. Initially, FastAF will waive that delivery fee and is considering rolling out a free delivery option for orders over a certain amount.

Hnetinka, you may remember, founded WunWun back in 2012 to provide on-demand delivery for stores and businesses. The company, which was a strong competitor to Postmates, ultimately shut down in 2015 and then sold its assets to Alfred.

“For WunWun, we were powering offline online,” Hnetinka told me. “We had runners that went to local stores and brought you things in as fast as 30 minutes. With Darkstore, we’re powering online offline. The next wave of that has always been a consumer facing app to enable all of the brands on these ecommerce companies to deliver products quickly. We felt there was no place to get the brands you have a high affinity towards from. These are the types of brands you weren’t able to get fast, previously.”

FastAF is currently only available in Los Angeles, but the plan is to launch in New York later this year. San Francisco is on the roadmap, but Hnetinka did not share an exact timeline.

Darkstore, the company behind FastAF, has raised more than $30 million in funding. Its most recent funding came last September as part of a $21 million Series B round led by EQT Ventures.

When you look at the Asia-Pacific (APAC) regional cloud infrastructure numbers, it would be easy to think that one of the Chinese cloud giants, particularly Alibaba, would be the leader in that geography, but new numbers from Synergy Research show Amazon leading across the region overall, which generated $9 billion in revenue in Q2.

The only exception to Amazon’s dominance was in China where Alibaba leads the way with Tencent and Baidu coming in second and third respectively. As Synergy’s John Dinsdale points out, China has its own unique market dynamics, and while Amazon leads in other APAC sub-regions, it remains competitive..

“China is a unique market and remains dominated by local companies, but beyond China there is strong competition between a range of global and local companies. Amazon is the leader in four of the five sub-regions, but it is not the market leader in every country,” he explained in a statement.

Image Credits: Synergy Research

The $9 billion in revenue across the region in Q2 represents less the a third of the more than $30 billion generated in the worldwide market in the quarter, but the APAC cloud market is still growing at over 40% per year. It’s also worth pointing out as a means of comparison that Amazon alone generated more than the entire APAC region with $10.81 billion in cloud infrastructure revenue in Q2.

While Dinsdale sees room for local vendors to grow, he says that the global nature of the cloud market in general, makes it difficult for these players to compete with the largest companies, especially as they try to expand outside their markets.

“The challenge for local players is that in most ways cloud is a truly global market, requiring global presence, leading edge technology, strong brand name and credibility, extremely deep pockets and a long-term focus. For any local cloud companies looking to expand significantly beyond their home market, that is an extremely challenging proposition,” Dinsdale said in a statement.

Redwood Materials, the recycling startup founded by Tesla’s longtime CTO and co-founder JB Straubel, has landed Amazon as a new investor and customer.

Amazon’s investment in Redwood Materials is one of a handful announced Thursday that stems from the e-commerce giant’s $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund. Amazon announced in June that it would commit to invest $2 billion in sustainable technologies and services that will help it reach its commitment to have net-zero carbon operations by 2040.

Amazon said Thursday that the first recipients of its $2 billion fund also include CarbonCure Technologies, which developed technology that consumes carbon dioxide in concrete, climate technology company Pachama, electric automaker Rivian and Turntide Technologies. Amazon didn’t disclose the amount of the investments.

At least one of these investments has already been announced, although without the specific detail that the funds were coming from the climate fund. For instance, Amazon, an existing investor in Rivian, was a named a participant in the electric automaker’s $2.5 billion round in July. Rivian said 2019 it was developing an electric delivery van for Amazon using its skateboard platform. Amazon ordered 100,000 of these vans, with deliveries starting in 2021.

While Amazon’s interest in Rivian has been public for more than a year, the other investments have been unknown until now.

However, there were hints earlier this month that Amazon might have an interest in — and at the very least an awareness of — Redwood Materials. The startup, which launched in 2017, recently raised $40 million from investors, including Capricorn Investment Group and Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the environmental-focused fund launched by Bill Gates that includes Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos as a board member. It’s possible that Amazon participated in that $40 million raise.

What’s perhaps more important than the investment amount is the relationship that has been established. Redwood Materials will also help Amazon recycle lithium-ion batteries from its electric vehicles as well as  e-waste from other parts of Amazon’s businesses and reuse their components.

Redwood Materials, a recycling startup based in Carson City, Nevada, is aiming to create a circular supply chain.

“We’ve made maybe more progress than some people may think and we’re actually running recycling operations and have revenue from those,” Straubel told TechCrunch. “In terms of customers, we have customers  on both sides of our company — on the incoming side there is material we recycle for companies and then on the outgoing side there are chemicals and materials that we sell back into the supply chain.”

Redwood already has customers on both sides of the business, Straubel said, although Panasonic and now Amazon are the only two that have been publicly named. Redwood is recycling the scrap from Panasonic’s battery cell manufacturing operation at the so-called Gigafactory it operates with Tesla in Sparks, Nevada. The company also has customers — that have yet to be named — on the consumer electronics side, Straubel said.

“We’re recycling and processing things as diverse as cell phone batteries, laptop computers, power tools, power banks, scooters and electric bicycles,” he said. “So it’s a kind of an amazing diversity of small- to mid-range applications that today really struggle to find a good solution. The recycling rates of those materials in particular are really atrocious in the market.”

When I wrote about how to run your startup in a downturn, the world was on the brink of recession. The economy contracted sharply — and the effects of the 2020 recession will persist.

If you are a founder, you can help. You can build companies that connect people, create employment and spark lasting change.

“Building is how we reboot the American dream,” declared Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist and co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz. In his rallying cry “It’s Time to Build” he writes: “We need to break the rapidly escalating price curves for housing, education and healthcare, to make sure that every American can realize the dream, and the only way to do that is to build.”

Yet building requires capital. How do you raise funding when the economy is on its knees? I spoke with six top venture capitalists to find out:

• Bill Trenchard, general partner, First Round Capital
• Dan Rose, chairman, Coatue Ventures
• Brianne Kimmel, founder, Work Life
• Sarah Guo, general partner, Greylock
• Merci Grace, partner, Lightspeed
• Charles Hudson, managing partner, Precursor Ventures

How has investment behavior changed during the pandemic?

• Deal velocity has gone up.
• The bar for investments is rising.
• VCs are nurturing existing investments and “proto-founders.”

The recession did not cause activity to stall. In fact, deal velocity has gone up.

“It’s almost like a superheated environment right now,” says Bill Trenchard, general partner at First Round. “The speed with which partnerships can quickly meet with a company that’s of interest is so much higher in the Zoom world. It’s changing our thinking around velocity in the market, which was already very high.”

“We’ve been as active as we were before,” agrees Dan Rose, chairman at Coatue Ventures. “Maybe even slightly more active because I think more good companies are raising as kind of an insurance policy. When it became clear that we weren’t going to be able to meet with founders in person anymore, we snapped to Zoom.”

Velocity may be rising, but investors now require more data to reach conviction.

“The pricing is still the same but we see risk going up,” says Bill Trenchard. “You need to be very rigorous on your investment theses and how you’re looking at companies. We’ve been looking for more grapple hooks and more data for things that we do invest in, so that we have more conviction when we do.”

“There’s been almost an immediate shift in terms of expectations from VCs,” says Brianne Kimmel, founder of early stage venture firm Work Life. “Companies have been forced to come in with more richness and customer development, a clear path to revenue, a lot more of a strategic approach around the core mechanics of the business and more specifically the business model.”

Sarah Guo, general partner at Greylock, also has high expectations for founders.

There are many reasons why you could have a good or a bad credit score. But if you’re just entering the job market, you may end up with reliable income and a low limit on your credit card. X1 Card wants to solve that by setting limits based on your current and future income instead of your credit score.

The company says some customers can expect limits up to five times higher than what they would get from a traditional credit card. And that limit can move up if you get a promotion at your job for instance.

“The consumer credit card industry has been almost untouched by tech and has relied on the archaic credit score system. Max [Levchin], David [Sacks] and I have similar scores — that makes no sense!” co-founder Deepak Rao told me. “We reimagined the credit card from the ground up to have smarter limits, intelligent features, modern rewards and a new look.”

Depending on your creditworthiness, you’ll get a variable APR of 12.9 to 19.9% and a balance transfer fee of 2%. There’s no annual subscription fee and X1 Card doesn’t change any late fee or foreign transaction fee.

Behind the scene, X1 Card is built by Thrive, the company that created ThriveCash, a loan platform that lets you get a credit line based on offer letters for an upcoming summer internship or your first full-time job after college.

You can then borrow as much as 25% of your total internship salary or 25% of your first three paychecks if it’s a full-time job. There are some fees, but it can be helpful if you’re signing a new lease and you don’t have any money on your bank account for instance.

Thrive has raised $10.25 million in funding from PayPal and Affirm founder Max Levchin, former Twitter COO Adam Bain, Craft Ventures general partner David Sacks and others. Read TechCrunch’s Natasha Mascarenhas article on ThriveCash if you want to learn more about that product.

Coming back to X1 Card, the card is a stainless steel Visa card that works with Apple Pay and Google Pay. It helps you track your subscriptions in different ways. First, you can cancel your subscription payments from the app. If you’re trying out a new service and they require you to enter your credit card information to start a free trial, you can also generate an auto-expiring virtual credit card.

If you receive a refund, X1 Card sends you a notification. You can also attach receipts to your transaction in the app.

When it comes to rewards, X1 Card uses points. You get 2x points on all purchases by default — there’s no category or retailers that give you special rewards. If you spend more than $15,000 using the card in a year, you get 3X points. If you refer a friend, you get 4X points on your purchases for a month — each new referral adds an extra month with 4X points. Points can be redeemed at retail partners, such as Apple, Airbnb, Delta, Everlane, etc.

In other words, it’s a credit card. But what makes this product more interesting than your average Chase-branded card is that it wants to disrupt the credit score system. It’s going to be interesting to see if people can really get higher limits with that system.

Image credits: X1 Card

I’m very much still working on a full review of the new Apple Watches — specifically the Series 6. As of this posting, I’ve had the wearables in my possession (and on my person) for a little under 24 hours. It’s a special circumstance attributable to the virtual nature of this week’s event.

Simply put, it has given me significantly more time than I would traditionally get amid the press scrum after an Apple event, but not nearly enough to feel comfortable calling this a full review. It’s important to spend some quality time with any device you’re planning to review — and that’s doubly true for a wearable.

A smartwatch needs to be a part of your life for a bit before you can feel comfortable using the word. I have, however, been living with watchOS 7. I’ve also spent plenty of time with the Series 5 and feel comfortable discussing some of the key differences between operating systems and devices.

The design language has remained more or less consistent across the life of the line, with some subtle aesthetic refinements over the years. Given how many of these things Apple has sold — and how the company continues to dominate the category — it’s easy enough to understand why it hasn’t messed too much with the formula here. That goes double for the lower-cost SE, which has a lot of common DNA with the discontinued Series 5.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

There are some new case colors, however. Blue and a new (Product)RED join silver, space gray and gold aluminum. Apple sent the former, and honestly, I’m a bit surprised at how subtle and deep the blue is. In most lighting, the color looks more like a blueish hue than a louder shade. For most users, that’s probably for the best. The deep blue is something more appropriate for a wider range of situations. From what I’ve seen, the red is a bit louder — more akin to the color on (Product)RED iPhones.

And there’s always the bands if you really want to stand out. It continues to be a proprietary design, but there are a ton of choices on the market at this point — and a lot of third-party options (though I admit I recently had a bad experience with one that tore after a week or so). Solo Loop is probably the biggest addition on the band front, removing the buckle/Velcro from the equation.

There are two primary styles (and a bunch of different colors). I’m partial to the braided version. It more closely resembles the fabric bands I prefer, while adding a little additional design into the mix. I’m less of a fan of the straight-up silicone model — I’ve never really been a fan of the rubbery silicon bands. The Loops are nice and stretchy, but you’ll still want to find which of the 12 sizes best fits you. You can measure and approximate from home, but honestly, it’s going to be a lot easier to deal with when more Apple Stores open for in-person sizing.

The biggest addition for the Series 6 on the hardware front is a blood oxygen sensor. Apple’s hardly the first smartwatch maker to offer the functionality, but it arrives at a key time, when more people are tuned into such numbers amid COVID-19. Here’s how Apple describes it,

The new blood oxygen sensor is made up of four LED clusters and four photodiodes. Incorporated into the completely redesigned back crystal, this new sensor works in concert with the Blood Oxygen app to determine your blood oxygen level. The testing will work in the background, or you can enable it through the app. The process takes about 15 seconds, though there are a lot of variables that can mess up a reading, including how much you move and the tightness and placement of your band. I found myself having to repeat it a couple of times to get a good reading.

It would be great if Apple offered up more contextual information about what blood oxygen levels actually mean. I assume a vast majority of people don’t know what constitutes a healthy level. It’s a tricky line to walk, however. Healthy levels vary from person to person, and Apple certainly doesn’t want to position itself as diagnosing people. The company did, however, mention COVID-19 a few times with regard to health monitoring.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

It is participating in some early studies, but again, for obvious reasons, it can’t come out and say it’s going to diagnose you with the condition. Rather, like the rest of the vitals, it can offer early detection of potential underlying problems. The SE, meanwhile, drops ECG monitoring altogether, which may or may not be worth the price differential, depending on what you’re looking to get out of such a device.

My biggest disappointment with Tuesday’s news (and the hands-on thus far) is that the battery life hasn’t changed much. I was really hoping the company was going to announce a big upgrade this time out, to coincide with new sleep tracking. Instead it suggests that users charge right before bed or in the morning (watchOS will pop up a warning if you need a charge before bedtime).

Image Credits: Brian Heater

There were some early reports that the company upgraded the battery just slightly, but the current official stated life is 18 hours (same as the 5). I’ve been wearing the watch for about eight and a half hours as of this writing and am at 74%, with the cellular running. The company has stated, however that the S6 processor is more battery efficient than its predecessor. The Watch can also be charged faster, with a full charging in around 90 minutes, which should help with topping up before bed.

Looking forward into more depth with sleep tracking and fitness features soon (though the Fitness+ service will sadly have to wait a bit). I have exactly one night with the Watch under my belt. I apparently slept seven hours and 31 minutes — which is surprisingly good for me. Chalk it up to Disrupt/Apple week exhaustion. The tracking is pretty basic so far, though I imagine it will offer a fuller picture over time. Right now it’s limited to time in bed and time asleep, attached to iOS’s new bed time features. It will also show you what your heart rate looked like over the course of the night.

The hand-washing feature introduced with watchOS 7 works reasonably well, though there’s still so much variation in bathroom acoustics and sinks it can sometimes be an issue, even while listening for the sound of soap squishing between your fingers. For instance, it had a little trouble with my bathroom sink, but was happy to start the 15-second countdown when I wash my hands (or the dishes) in the sink. The Health app collects hand washing metrics over time, including the average time washed and the number of times per day. It’s an odd thing to see mapped out, but Apple’s timing couldn’t have have been better.

So far, the Series 6 isn’t a giant leap forward, but it’s nice to see Apple taking health more and more seriously — and again, it’s going to be great to revisit the hardware when Fitness+ drops. The Series 6 is available starting Friday at $499 for the cellular version and $399 without. The SE, meanwhile is $329 and $279, respectively, while the old standby Series 3 starts at an extremely accessible $199.

The new Watches go on sale tomorrow. Full review soon, seriously.

Companies like Perfect Day, Impossible Foods, and a host of other startups that are developing replacements for animal farmed goods used in food, clothes, cosmetics, and chemicals have raised a whopping $1.5 billion through the first half of the year.

That’s according to a new report from The Good Food Institute which is tracking the growth of investments into sustainable foods. The report identified fermentation technologies as a rising third pillar of foundational technologies on which new and established food brands are making products that swap out animal products for other protein sources.

Fermentation technologies, which use microbes like microalgae and mycoprotein, can produce biomass, improve plant proteins and create new functional ingredients, and companies developing and deploying these technologies have raised $435 million in funding through the end of July 2020. It’s an indication of how competitive the market is for food technologies, representing an increase of nearly 60 percent over the $274 million invested in all of 2019, according to GFI.

“Fermentation is powering a new wave of alternative protein products with huge potential for improving flavor, sustainability, and production efficiency. Investors and innovators are recognizing this market potential, leading to a surge of activity in fermentation as an enabling platform for the alternative protein industry as a whole,” said GFI Associate Director of Science and Technology Liz Specht, in a statement. “And this is just the beginning: The opportunity landscape for technology development is completely untapped in this area. Many alternative protein products of the future will harness the plethora of protein production methods now available, with the option of leveraging combinations of proteins derived from plants, animal cell culture, and microbial fermentation.”

Portait of the head of an adult black and white cow, gentle look, pink nose, in front of a blue sky. Image Credit: Getty Images

As the $1.5. billion figure indicates, big-time investors are taking notice. Funds like the Bill Gates -backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Temasek, Horizons Ventures, CPP Investment Board, Louis Dreyfus Co., Bunge Ventures, Kellogg, ADM Capital, Danone, Kraft Heinz, Mars, and Tyson Foods’ investment arm have all backed companies in the industry.

In all, fermentation-focused startup companies raised 3.5 times more capital than cultivated meat companies worldwide and almost 60 percent as much as U.S. plant-based meat, egg, and dairy companies, according to the GFI. 

As the industry has grown up, since Quorn became the first company to use fermentation-derived proteins back in 1985, big industrial companies have started to take notice.

While there are at least 44 startups focused on alternative proteins worldwide, according to the GFI report, large publicly traded companies like Novozymes, DuPont, and DSM are also developing product lines for the alternative protein business.

“Given the breadth of applications, we believe that fermentation could solve many current challenges faced by alternative proteins. On the one hand, biomass fermentation can create nutritious, clean protein in a highly efficient and low-cost way. On the other hand, the potential for precision fermentation to produce value-added, highly functional, and nutritious ingredients is very exciting and could revolutionize the plant-based category,” said Rosie Wardle, an investor with the CPT Capital, which specializes in backing startups developing novel protein production technologies. “From an investment perspective, we are very excited about the white space opportunities in this category, and we are actively looking to increase our investments in the space. This new report from GFI is the first comprehensive overview of fermentation for alternative protein applications and should be required reading for everyone who wants to create a more efficient and less harmful global food system.”

Daniel Arlow has spent the last eighteen years studying genomics and synthetic biology. The arc of his career has taken the first-time founder of the new startup Ansa Biotechnologies from MIT to the famous Keasling Lab at the University of California at Berkeley and now to the world of startups.

Now, Arlow is ready to tell the world what he’s been working on at Ansa, which is nothing less than the delivery of the next generation of synthetic DNA manufacturing.

His company is bringing to market a new process for making DNA that Arlow said is faster and more accurate than existing technologies.

“DNA read, write, and edit are the core pillars of synthetic biology,” said Seth Bannon, a founding partner at the frontier investment firm Fifty Years, and an investor in Ansa’s recent $7.9 million investment round. “Currently the ability to write DNA is the main bottleneck in the synthetic biology industry. By enabling faster, longer, and higher quality DNA synthesis with their fully enzymatic process, Ansa will help accelerate the entire synthetic biology industry.”

Arlow likens the state of the industry now to the early days of programming. “If it took three weeks to compile your code or recompile your code to make a simple change you could never make any progress in developing software for the computer,” Arlow said. And that’s the state for programmable biology these days.

“It took a really long time to test your idea after it was designed. It forces you to plan things out much more carefully and to be less spontaneous and less agile,” he said. 

Using Ansa, companies can have DNA made based on their specific requirements at a speed and scale that Arlow said other companies in the market can’t match.

Currently, DNA molecules are made using a thirty year-old chemical method that has limitations on the length of molecules that can be made. By contrast, Ansa’s biologically inspired DNA synthesis method means that the company can make long molecules directly, without the risk of errors that can result from patching pieces of genetic material together.

The company has developed an enzyme that basically adds bases to a DNA molecule. The company basically has a cut and paste function that serves to unblock DNA and then allows another base to be attached.

It’s also important to note that Arlow’s company is doing synthesis as a service rather than selling bioprinters that can enable any researcher to make their own DNA.

“One of the reasons we’re developing our business as a DNA synthesis service… as opposed to making a printer… is because that gives us a much greater ability to vet orders for biosecurity risk before we manufacture them,” Arlow said.

Other companies like DNA Script (from France) and Nuclera (a Cambridge, UK-based company) are going to market with bioprinters that they’re selling directly to research labs, according to Arlow.

All of these businesses are the next iteration of companies like Twist Bioscience, that are manufacturing DNA to power the synthetic biology revolution (something that TechCrunch Disrupt attendees have been hearing a lot about).

Ansa hasn’t shipped any DNA yet, but the company will soon be taking orders to begin competing in a market that Arlow estimates is over $1 billion today and is growing quite rapidly.

“Writing is really the bottleneck,” Arlow said. “The business we’re in is selling to R&D.. the faster we can crank out the DNA the better it is. Part of the reason why we’re still pretty bad at engineering biology is because it takes so long to build a new design. My hope is by building more we’ll get better at designing because we’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t work.”