On spinning Plant Cell IP out of the university and the B2C trap - Mick Riley, Forever Harvest

About this episode

Mick Riley discusses the challenges and strategies of spinning out plant cell IP from a university into a successful biotech startup.

Episode 92: Forever Harvest: Mick Riley on spinning Plant Cell IP out of the university and the B2C trap In this episode, I sit down with Mick Riley, Co-founder and CEO of Forever Harvest, a New Zealand-based plant cell culture startup that recently closed a $1.2M pre-seed round. Mick details how he stepped in as the commercial CEO to spin out "high seven-figure" IP from a public research institute, taking raw lab science and turning it into a commercial biotech platform. We discuss why growing commodity nuts in a bioreactor makes zero economic sense, and how their strategy shifted to accelerating high-value traits (like Vitamin K2) for corporate B2B partners. 🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Mick's candid admission about wasting six months trying to build a B2C brand and why pitching themselves as a horizontal platform ultimately secured their VC funding. Key Facts Forever Harvest: Mick Riley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mick-riley-205a78276/ Website: https://www.foreverharvest.co/ Headquarters: New Zealand Goal : To utilize plant cell culture (growing fruit and nuts "without the tree") to supply FMCGs with highly tailored, premium B2B ingredients, specifically focusing on…

People in this episode

Host: Alex Shandrovsky

Guest: Mick Riley

Topics covered

• plant cell culture
• biotech
• B2B strategy
• venture capital
• commercialization

Keywords

• plant cell culture
• biotech startup
• B2B ingredients
• venture capital
• commercialization

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Forever Harvest, Bioeconomy Science Institute, Sprout Agritech

Products: Vitamin K2

Places: New Zealand

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