At Amplify Capital, we actively support and invest in mission-driven founders and their startups across North America, focusing on healthcare, education, and environmental technologies. Our thesis is grounded in backing companies where purpose drives profit to deliver scalable and outsized financial and impact returns.

We believe we can foster impact investing and transform how we think about investing by doing well and doing good.

The Problem

The global population is anticipated to increase by 25% to 9.8B by 2050. With this increase in population is a growing, unmet production gap for basic necessities like food, medicine and energy. This gap needs to be filled while also meeting net-zero targets. Current manufacturing processes are highly resource intensive and polluting, and the demand for new materials that are more environmentally sustainable and cost-effective is increasing. It is a critical time to rethink how we produce and consume resources on a global scale.

Synthetic biology and biomanufacturing have become favourable solutions to enable less carbon-intensive manufacturing and eventually more cost-effective production of many goods. These methods use naturally occurring processes in plants, insects and other organisms, to transform a variety of feedstocks into useful products like proteins and textiles. However, existing solutions are often expensive due to the high costs of operating fermentation tanks and sometimes the inputs needed for the cells to thrive.

For these technologies to have a meaningful impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions the performance and cost of the outputs will need to be on par or cheaper than existing products. This will make them a more competitive and sustainable manufacturing alternative. Investment in these innovations will play a critical role in achieving net-zero goals while meeting the rising demand for food, medicine, and energy.

The Solution

Alberta-based Future Fields developed a new platform, the EntoEngine, to develop recombinant proteins using insect biotechnology. Their unique platform uses fruit flies instead of more common methods using E. Coli and yeast. This particular application provides a more beneficial production method for growth factors. At scale, Future Fields will be able to produce complex proteins with applications in cellular agriculture (cell-cultured animal protein production) and biopharmaceuticals.

In the food industry alone, livestock for human consumption accounts for 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions. This is not accounting for land and water usage. Synthetic biology offers a new opportunity to produce the foods we need to feed a global population at a fraction of the emissions today.

Investment Thesis

The demand for biomanufacturing processes and solutions to meet global food and energy needs is urgent. The Future Fields solution optimizes biomanufacturing processes and is positioned to meet these demands while simultaneously supporting the transition to a net-zero economy. The EntoEngine platform can potentially become a cost-effective and zero-waste process using less energy than traditional production in pharmaceuticals and food.

he Amplify team met founder Matt Anderson-Baron in early 2022 and was immediately impressed by the unique approach to addressing existing limitations in biomanufacturing. With backgrounds in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Health Research, Jalene and Matt Anderson-Baron have been able to grow Future Fields’ team to include leading engineers and researchers in the field of synthetic biology and cell media.

Impact

Future Fields will contribute to Amplify’s goal of reducing 50 Mega Tonnes of CO2e emissions produced by 2030. Animal agriculture is one of the top polluting human activities accounting for 14.5% of GHG emissions. The prohibitively high cost of growth factors (recombinant proteins) used in the production of cultivated protein, limits the accessibility of these products in consumer markets.

Future Fields optimizes the biomanufacturing process, enabling more opportunities for cost-effective alternative proteins. As a result, Future Fields will support the decarbonization industries while offering a scalable solution to meet food, pharmaceutical, and other urgent and necessary needs globally.

Reducing land use in agriculture, creating more resilient food systems, and scalable low-impact agricultural and manufacturing processes strongly position Future Fields to make a meaningful contribution to a more sustainable and prosperous future.

Future Fields will address the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:

SDG 13 Climate Action — Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact.
SDG 12 Responsible Production and Consumption, including Target #12.5 — By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.
SDG 2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture, including Target #2.4 — Ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, that help maintain ecosystems.

We’re thrilled to welcome Future Fields to Amplify’s growing portfolio! Feel free to follow Future Field’s journey with us. Remember to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on Amplify Capital’s exciting companies.

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