These 10 Women Investors Are Betting Big On Synthetic Biology Future

We are living in a time when incredible advances in AI, automation, and synthetic biology are ushering in breakthroughs that were previously in the realm of science fiction. At the same time, climate change, energy crises, global food insecurity, and the potential for rapid spread of infectious diseases demand urgent solutions.

It takes putting the smartest minds together to solve these problems. But without strategic investment and backing from venture capital firms and angel investors, even the best ideas would never take flight. These ten investors – some of whom will be speaking at the SynBioBeta conference in two weeks – are recognizing the power of synthetic biology to solve those challenges and create entirely new industries and markets with multi-billion-dollar potential. Meet the women who are making synthetic biology future a reality.

Maryanna Saenko, Co-founder and General Partner, Future Ventures

Maryanna Saenko is a Co-Founder at Future Ventures, which supports founder-led, mission-driven companies forging the future at the cutting edge of disruptive technology and new industry formation. Founded in 2018 in Los Altos, California, the firm invests in commercial space exploration, deep learning, quantum computing, robotics, AI, blockchain, sustainable transportation, and synthetic biology. Their recent investments include 64xBio, Cambrian, Deep Genomics, Gameto, and Opentrons, among others.

Jaleh Daie, Managing Partner, Aurora Equity

Women in Tech Hall of Famer, Jaleh Daie has worked in academia, business, philanthropy, government, and NGOs, focusing on sustainability, climate tech, food security, and health. A professor of biology at UW Madison in her previous life, she had founded an interdisciplinary research center, given out multi-million-dollar grants as head of STEM at David & Lucile Packard Foundation, and worked with the President’s National Science & Technology Council on Presidential initiatives. She is a now a managing partner at Aurora Private Equity, a U.K. angel investment firm, as well as Founder and Chair of AgFood Tech at Band of Angels, a Silicon Valley startup investor.

Celestine Schnugg, Founder and General Partner, Boom Capital

Celestine Schnugg is the Founder and General Partner at Boom Capital, a VC fund that invests in deeply technical, under networked founders – many of whom are synthetic biology pre-seed startups coming out of academic labs. To give you an idea, Boom Capital was the first investor in Mammoth Biosciences, Fauna Bio, A-Alpha Bio, and Nabla Bio. Schnugg had spent five years at Eric Schmidt & Dror Berman’s VC, Innovation Endeavors, and was named 2019 Wall Street Journal “Women to Watch” in Venture Capital.

Jennifer Kan, Managing Partner, Climate Capital Bio

Jennifer Kan is a Founding and Managing Partner at Climate Capital Bio, investing in frontier technology startups solving climate change. She is a protein engineer by training who has worked as a science consultant for global companies and brands like L’Oréal and Lancôme. After co-founding a venture-backed health tech startup Simpl.Care, Kan went on to become a managing partner at Climate Capital’s Bio arm, where she has invested in dozens of an early-stage synthetic biology startups working on decarbonizing the global economy, including Zero Acre Farms, Aralez Bio, Colossal Biosciences, MicroByre, and many more.

Friederike Grosse-Holz, Director, Blue Horizon

As Director at Blue Horizon, Friederike Grosse-Holz invests in game changers that are disrupting the largest market in the world: food. The firm is based in Zurich, Switzerland, and focuses on accelerating the global transition towards sustainable food and agriculture. Blue Horizon does that by partnering with food producers, distribution chains, and companies providing visionary solutions to replace the unsustainable business models of the past. Grosse-Holz is a PhD scientist with a background in bioinformatics and protein biochemistry who spent three and a half years as a managing consultant at BCG.

Ana Bernardo-Gancedo, Associate, Amadeus Capital Partners

Ana Bernardo-Gancedo is an Associate in the Early Stage Funds team at Amadeus Capital Partners focusing on Healthcare. Amadeus Capital Partners is a global technology investor based in London, UK, that has raised over $1 billion to back more than 180 companies to date, including IVF genetic testing company Igenomix and Oxford Nanopore Technologies. Before joining Amadeus in 2020, Bernardo-Gancedo worked at a top-tier management consulting firm in London and was a project manager at the Cambridge Consulting Network (CCN) while getting her PhD in Biophysical Chemistry from Cambridge University.

Kulika Weizman, Principal, Creative Ventures

Kulika Weizman is a Principal at Creative Ventures, where she invests in early-stage deep tech companies solving critical problems like rising healthcare costs, climate change, and labor shortages. She describes herself as a technology enthusiast with a background in both scientific research and business development who believes in a combination of scientific knowledge and its applications. Previously, Weizman was a co-founder and CEO of a synthetic biology startup Namuh producing functional ingredients found in human breast milk and served on NSF grant review panels, Hello Tomorrow’s Global Challenge startup competition jury panels, and mentored deep tech startups at IndieBio and Alchemist accelerators.

Lindy Fishburne, Managing Partner, Breakout Ventures

Lindy Fishburne is the Managing Partner of Breakout Ventures, home for creative bioscience entrepreneurs building solutions in human health and sustainability, and the Founder of Breakout Labs, a grant-making body operating as part of the Thiel Foundation. Fishburne has been investing at the intersection of technology and biology for the last 8 years and describes herself as a “radical science lover” building a bio-based future.

Breakout Ventures has built a portfolio that includes the maker of leather without the cow Modern Meadow, high-performance, bio-based materials disseminator Checkerspot, and carbon-conserving chemicals producer Zymochem.

Gita Reinitz, Principal, NFX Bio

Gita Reinitz is a Principal at NFX Bio and Mentor at Venture Forward, a nonprofit dedicated to shaping a stronger, healthier future for the U.S. venture capital ecosystem that includes women, people of color, and other marginalized communities which are underrepresented in the venture ecosystem. She is passionate about funding companies at the intersection of tech and bio, having brought CRISPR technology to labs in Israel through her first company in 2014. Reinitz was previously a Principal at Tech.Bio and today she spends her time scouting technologies and IP in Israel and the US, leveraging her strong network to help form founder-led companies.

Jenny Rooke, Managing Director, Genoa Ventures

Jenny Rooke is the Founder and Managing partner of Genoa Ventures, investing in companies that engineer biological systems to become powerful technologies themselves. Rooke has almost two decades of investing experience and leverages her background in genetics to help entrepreneurs navigate the start-up life cycle and empower companies working the intersection of technology and biology. She helped establish the investing function at the Gates Foundation by funding companies in genetic engineering, diagnostics, and synthetic biology. Her prior investments include Zymergen, Caribou Biosciences, Accuri (acquired by Becton Dickinson
BDX
), and Topaz (acquired by Sanofi).

With such a powerful, innovative, and visionary investment force backing emerging synthetic biology companies, the momentum is strong to tackle the challenges of tomorrow.

Thank you to Katia Tarasava for additional research and reporting on this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta and some of the companies and organization write about, including 64xBio, BCG, Blue Horizon, Boom Capital, Breakout Ventures, Checkerspot, Creative Ventures, Genoa Ventures, Modern Meadow, NFX, Opentrons and Schmidt Futures, are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference. For more content, you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter and follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.