First part of the investment announcement: Z Bio joins the Brainforest portfolio!

Dear Brainforest Follower,
We have been holding onto this one for a few weeks, and we can finally say it out loud.

🥁 (drumroll…)

Z Bio, co-founded by Fredric Tanuwijoyo and Carin Jacobs, has been selected to receive the first investment from our Summer Venture Program Cohort #7. They are now the newest venture in the Brainforest portfolio 🎉!!

Z Bio takes organic waste, the food waste that would otherwise rot in a landfill, and uses black soldier fly larvae to turn it into two things Indonesian farmers use every single day: a biofertilizer that helps crops fight off disease, and an affordable animal feed.

Waste becomes an input instead of a problem.

We first met the team at the start of the ten weeks, and Fredric came to Zürich for the final Pitch Day. What impressed us most was how much they had already built. They were not pitching a plan, they were reporting from the field.

Their first cacao trial speaks for itself:

“Our first cacao field trial cut new fungal disease infections by 33% compared to untreated trees.”

We sat down with Fredric after the event to hear the whole story.

Read interview here

Would you like to learn more about Z Bio and how you could get involved? Schedule a call with Tommy, our Chief Venture Officer, to learn more.

Call with Tommy

Also, we have more news cooking behind the scenes. We cannot say much yet, but you will hear from us very soon again…

Until then, we hope you get a proper break this (hot) summer time. And if you are still without plans, here is something we came across outside of Brainforest: our former colleague Camille and our Chief Venture Officer Tommy are hosting a retreat in the Swiss Jura on the 17th of September.

If you would like to slow down a little before everything picks up again, it might be exactly the right thing.

Learn more here.

Thank you, as always, for being part of our forest 🌳 and speaking of the forest growing: applications for our next Venture Program are open.

If someone came to mind while you were reading this, please forward them this email. Some of our best founders reached us because someone in this community thought of them!

Team Brainforest