Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast features the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
385 Maria Jensen - Giving cows a voice through epigenetics while improving animal welfare and profitability
A conversation with Maria Jensen, co-founder of Antler Bio, helping dairy farmers identify and address factors limiting their herd’s full potential. What if cows could speak? Especially dairy cows. They would probably share not only the horrors of the dairy industry, but also stories of many dairy farmers who truly try their best to care for their animals and yet still fail. Their cows are neither healthy nor happy, their bank accounts look worse every year, and their mental health and marriages are shaky. Intensive dairy, unless you are massive, is a very difficult industry.
So how do we change this gridlock? By taking technology from the horse racing industry to let cows and herds speak: to share what’s missing, what could be improved. And, surprise, there is plenty of low-hanging fruit in improving dairy cows’ lives practically overnight from better minerals to more water points, and of course the holy grail: super-diverse pasture management.
This leads to healthier cows, fewer vet costs, and more milk.
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In Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast show we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.
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What if cows could speak, especially dairy cows? They will probably share some of the horrors of the dairy industry, but also about many dairy farmers that try really try to take the best care they can for their animal but fail. Their cows are not healthy nor happy, their bank accounts look worse every year and their mental health and marriages are shaky. Intensive dairy, unless you're a massive, is a very difficult business. Yes, all dairy cows and cows for that matter, massive is a very difficult business. Yes, all dairy cows and cows for that matter, should be almost depending on your context permanently outside. And yes, the cows should stay with their mothers as long as possible to be even talking about regenerative dairy. But for many dairy farmers, this is a long-distance pipe dream and we need to meet them where they are. If we don't give them concrete tools now, they will never change and get out of business. And no, dairy won't disappear anytime soon. The market will just be absorbed, probably by bigger dairy cow factories with cows who never see grass or sunlight.
Speaker 1:So how do we change this gridlock? By taking technology used in racehorse industry to make the cows and the herd speak. What is missing, what could be changed? And, surprise, there is a lot of low-hanging fruit in improving dairy cows' lives practically overnight, from better minerals to more water points and, of course, the holy grail, super diverse pasture management. This leads to healthier cows, less vet costs, more milk and, importantly, potentially better, healthier milk and thus healthier people. It's a bit too early to connect this also to nutrient density and quality, but it's the direction of the journey.
Speaker 1:We touch upon much more the risk of raising money from the wrong parties for such a disruptive technology. Many people win with this approach the animals, the farmers of raising money from the wrong parties for such a disruptive technology. Many people win with this approach the animals, the farmers but many people lose the input companies and pharmaceutical companies. Probably Suddenly, it's clear which interventions work and which don't, and how is it to raise finance. As a female founder, the price is not very easy, especially male investors. Waste a lot of your time. Get ready for a conversation about disruptive tech, dairy farming, margins, raising capital and resources.
Speaker 1:This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast, where we learn more on how to put money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems, while making an appropriate and fair return. Welcome to another episode today with the co-founder of Antler Bio, which helps dairy farmers identify and address factors limiting their herd's full potential. They connect genomics and environment. To make it concrete, it helps to find the factors that switch off good genes and discover the most impactful interventions, usually meaning getting cows outside and on, better pasture management with different feed, minerals, etc. But, most importantly, they can show what actually works financially and environmentally. And, of course, when it comes to animal welfare, they make Regen Ag in dairy profitable and visible. Welcome, maria.
Speaker 2:Yay, thank you, kuro, so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:And this one has been a wow in the making because we've known each other for a bit. We are full disclosure in best stores with Gen Re twice now. We doubled down on the latest round and I think at the time I said whenever you want, come on the podcast because we need to talk about this. But I also understand that you want to be a bit further along before you get on a mini but still a stage, and so it took a bit of time. But we scheduled. And after we saw each other at Groundswell you were wearing some interesting cow suits and got a lot of attention and which, I mean, is a very smart way to get dairy farmers involved. But we're going to unpack all of that to you today. And I want to start with a personal question we always love to ask. In this case, I know a bit of the background story. So it's a very interesting journey. How come you spend most of your time, most of your waking hours, focusing on soil?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, I would say, because soil, I mean, it's kind of the start of everything, right. So it's the source, because from that you grow animal feed and we see that when the cows that we work with now they eat the feed coming from the soil. We already see patterns in the data that the healthier soil basically you have, the more nutrients you have in the feed that's then passed on to the cows and then, yeah, the cows will be obviously healthier, much happier because their metabolism works well, and yeah, and then from there onwards, you can only imagine what sort of produce these sort of cows produce hopefully more nutrient dense produce, and that will have an impact on the humans. So it's, yeah, I'm like I'm a cell biologist and a nerd and everything comes down to the cell and like us bridging the data one day from soil to animal health, to then the produced to eventually human health, is something we're super ambitious about. But now the focus is on the cow. So, yeah, we have to stay focused.
Speaker 1:And what led you to the dairy industry? Because with cell biology and inert, inert could be many different places to put that to work, let's say. And even on the nutrient density, there's a whole world to work on, but it's definitely one of the most neglected pieces of our puzzle at the moment, and so that's why we pay so much attention to it. But how come dairy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good question. And now I was kind of reflecting back when you said that you've invested like twice already. And I remember the first time I pitched to you and we met, like we we had a intro call and and kind of like I told you about what we were doing. We were actually like we were going to dare do dairy or we were like moving into dairy space, but I was pitching an idea to you and that's because our technology started in horses. So it's a bit of a funny story and obviously I could spend hours over a beer talking about this story.
Speaker 2:But yeah, technology started in horses. We were doing fantastic research with one of the really, really famous breeder in breeding standard bred racehorse trotters. And yeah, we were looking at why genetically similar racehorses perform in a different way on the racetrack and the environment's effect on that and the environment's effect on that. And obviously we had. Well, what we do basically is we take the latest information and the latest methodologies and all of that from the human space and apply it to animals, and that's why we decided to focus on looking at RNA and looking at gene expression in horses, which then that data. I don't want to bore you now about that and go too much into details, but we had really good results. So we were kind of going towards product development in the horse space. Everyone was really excited, especially the breeder. They invested in the company and all of that.
Speaker 2:We always knew that this technology is species agnostic and everything we build, all the protocols and all the data analysis and everything is species agnostic so that we can basically feed any data into our systems and then we can get insights out. Whether you're a horse breeder or a trainer, or whether you're a dairy farmer or a poultry farmer, it's species agnostic. So we knew that we were going to expand, but we were kind of comfortable at the time. Just, you know doing R&D and you need to focus, obviously, because if you do too many different things, you're never going to deliver something like a new product to the market and then like a new product to the market, um, and then, uh yeah, covid hit and that was the like a big crisis for us because obviously during covid and the pandemic and the lockdown, no one was interested in racehorses at the time or very obviously, the breeders were interested in horses but not interested in new technology and they didn't want to put more money into that. So all kind of the funding stopped, all our projects stopped.
Speaker 2:It was it was kind of a moment where that that accelerated the transition to another species and I happened to have it's a combination of two things happened to have good connections in the dairy space in finland. I'm originally from finland, uh, so I I had some people they are there, I knew I could start to bounce the idea of transitioning this into the Dairyspace and they also would have like customer access. So that makes it like very tangible. Another thing is that the kind of the price of sequencing is still quite high. It's dropped massively. It's one of the things in the world, I think, that's dropped most in price. So when the human genome was sequenced it was cost like for the first time it was costing something like $1 billion or like it's in the billions. But now you can sequence a genome for like hundreds. So yeah, we've come to a point where it's feasible to do also on livestock, but then it's still quite expensive if you think about like aquaculture or poultry for example, you needed something big enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And an animal that earns quite a lot and has the potential to earn a lot of profits during its lifetime.
Speaker 1:basically, Probably not a beef cow but a dairy one makes sense.
Speaker 1:That's why I started in horses, because, of course, when you find that, because I think, if I remember correctly from the story, that it was like the horse industry of course is very focused on results and it's very difficult to predict two amazing horses or two amazing gene pools somehow together doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be another one. And, of course, if you have any more insight into predictability there, like these horses when there's an outlier gets sold for I don't remember what kind of but insane amount of money, but of course, if you have any more predictability there, it's a very interesting insight. So I can imagine they were investing until COVID hit and then nobody was interested in resources. But in dairy, a dairy cow over her lifetime has quite a bit of value. And also their predictability and, like herd management and being able to start selecting is, of course, a potential huge piece compared to poultry where, yeah, the lifetime of a chicken if it, if we like it or not, it's just not so much even if she she's laying eggs.
Speaker 1:it's less than a year and that was it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and like the timing is going to be right for chicken, but yeah.
Speaker 1:You're riding your wave of genome? Yeah, exactly, that's the thing You're riding your wave of. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Start at a place where it makes sense. Now, exactly, yeah, and so when we sample a farm or the farm, we deliver a kit to the farm and the farm subscribes to our service and we pre-select animals to be sampled. They never sample the whole herd. It's a partial herd approach which makes it feasible in the future also for poultry, for example. But yeah, as I said, focus Now we're like laser focused on cows, but bearing in mind the holistic picture of the whole, like not only different forms of livestock, but also the whole picture, as I said, like from soil to, you know, even human health.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's such a fascinating piece on technology and the deep tech space, like these kind of exponential curves in terms of technology development and price drops which we've seen in solar, which we've seen in batteries, of course, moore's law and now Moore's law. We sort of got, let's say, exited in terms of AI development at the moment, but these price drops have been like from a few billion to a few hundred. We're very bad at exponential numbers as human beings, but that's such an insane drop of price and if that continues, it enables a lot of other things. Of course, it enables a lot of other things as well, and we've been doing interesting experiments that might are a bit risky, but it also enables to actually get insights into things we never could do. Like even a third of a herd would be impossible a couple of years ago because it would be too expensive unless you were a research farm or unless you were a hobby farmer with a lot of money on the side, and this would just need not be feasible.
Speaker 1:and if we can continue to see that line going down, it means chickens at some point will be relevant, and maybe even fish, and anyway all those and and so, getting to you, already said we sample part of the herd, we send a kit, meaning they take a bit of blood from every cow or from those cows selected, send it to a lab, and then what does it tell a farmer beyond what he or she already knows Like? What is it? Why are farmers knocking on your door, which they are, to get this information that they couldn't see with their eye or their veterinarian cannot tell them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd say maybe, like in a nutshell, this is the closest that you would get to the cows, being able to speak about what's going on in their metabolism. We see, and this now depends completely on the farm, because you have different farming systems, you have different husbandry practices, every farm has its different issues and things that are characteristic to the farm, and because that's reflected in the data we look at, which is RNA, the results depend on the farm. It can be nutritional deficiencies. Very often we see those. The nutritional bit is never fully optimized and all of these farms would use some sort of like analysis on the feed and have a feeding expert that they work with and and come up with a female.
Speaker 2:But yeah and still, yeah, we can deliver insights. So that that's like one one thing we also see a lot like if the farm is struggling with kind of hygiene issues we see that or with inflammation, which is might not even be related to hygiene directly. It might be related to deficiencies, like we have one farm actually that's really interesting top notch, so clean, like everything, super good husbandry, everything is, yeah, like textbook. You could drop a sandwich on the floor and basically eat it almost in the barn, but they still came up with a lot of inflammatory signatures in the data and that was because of nutritional deficiencies and then that having an effect on hormone levels, and then that having an effect on hormone levels, and then that having an effect on causing low-level inflammation and imbalance in the immune system, which meant that they were more prone to mastitis. And that was something they were saying that they don't understand.
Speaker 2:The barn is so clean but they still have quite a lot of cell count in the milk. They also have somatic cell count and they also have quite a lot of mastitis, which they wouldn't normally see. Everything is top-notch, so these sort of insights, and that was linked back to feed. So yeah, it's very interesting. One farm we saw a dehydration signature in a part of the herd, not the whole herd, and this happened to be like quite underperforming animals, although they had like the genetic potential was there to produce, but they weren't producing and that came down to the positioning of the water troughs in the barn.
Speaker 2:So the dom and the dominant cows wouldn't let the animals, you know yeah, drink enough and and they would be a bit stressed every time they would go and drink. And and the farmer installed like another, uh, water trough and uh, yeah, we saw like a improvement in the milk yield in those cows uh that were not getting enough water earlier, and also the the signature disappeared in the next sampling.
Speaker 1:So it's it's very interesting very fast as well, like these feed things and water, and are things that might take a few months to to fix or to readjust. Of course, pasture management is a different thing, we'll get to that but these are things that are, yeah, the epic. The genetic potential is there and they are not. Just they are not performing, they're actually suffering as animals. Like animal welfare piece is, of course, massive if your hormone imbalance and you have inflammation etc. And somehow it's not being picked up by the veterinarian, it's not being picked up by the farmer just seeing, okay, these are not performing because the data you have is their milk performance, that's sort of it.
Speaker 1:And then, basically, this shows in a in a week or in two weeks what actually is happening in the herd or part of the herd that you sample. Of course I'm imagining, yeah, farmers are quite excited about that. And then the pasture piece like how important, like when you talk to feed and like in the sampling you've been doing, because you've been to quite a few different kind of farms, predominantly inside, predominantly outside. What have you seen? What have you seen there?
Speaker 2:yeah, we've seen, for example I'm gonna throw these really tangible examples at you, but which is probably good. So, for example, concrete, the better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, we had quite a few farms in a certain region that received. One of the recommendations they would receive is to consider supplementation with choline. And in this region also, they were like farmers were quite baffled because choline wouldn't be something that they thought they needed. It's not trendy or it's, I don't know, maybe trendy is a horrible word but, just to simplify it, it's not like the supplement to buy there. So that was like. First of all, they were like, yeah, super mind blown by hey, do I actually need to buy choline? I've never. Some farmers hadn't even really heard about it. So we see that. And then there was one farm in this region that didn't have that cooling signature. Now this farm, and so we work a lot with farmers.
Speaker 2:So I love to put my boots on and go and talk to the customers, because I'm not a dairy farmer and I understand that and we need to build something that helps the farmers and really really brings them that. And we need to build something that helps the farmers and really really brings them like insights and is useful to them. So me and the entire team, we love to put our boots on. So I put my boots on, like a year ago, I think this was and I visited this farm that had like a different. You could see that there's like they have they didn't have so many nutritional issues. Um, which was peculiar because in that region we saw a lot of patterns in, like I said the colon thing.
Speaker 2:And then I asked the farmer. I just said, like as a kind of jokingly, like yeah, you probably have your soil, you know, in good health because you know this, like your profile looks really good and he got so excited. He was like you have no idea, I'm such a soil geek, like I love soil and I believe that's where you know my animals, they, if they can get the best feed and that comes from the best soil. So I take care of the soil and you know, I'm looking after it and I like to test it and make sure that there's everything like the, the kind of flora in the fauna in the soil and the microbiome is is good.
Speaker 2:And and yeah, he was, uh, yeah, sourcing kind of not traditional fertilizers. He was looking into alternative ways which were more kind of in line with nature to fertilize the soil and so forth, and it was just kind of those things. And I know this is not like a one-off example, but we get the data from the farmers like continuously and it's something we want to build a picture of that we actually back this like have hard evidence and hard data and scientific results that back up these sort of instances that we see, and there will be many more. So as more farmers sign up for epiherd, the more they contribute to this sort of work of understanding, like what some farms are doing right maybe on the regions, in region space, and then we can also advise farmers in the future who are not into those practices to adopt some practices at least to increase the soil health, for example, because we do see a difference.
Speaker 1:And also maybe it's too early to ask on grazing management, and I mean, of course there's a difference between having healthy soil management, and I mean of course there's a difference between having healthy soil, harvesting that as hay or silage and feeding it still in a barn, partly or a lot, or having the herd outside almost permanently or permanently in most places. That's more than possible. We've seen the winter feeding with bay hills etc. Like have you some of those outliers that really take it to the extreme in the dairy space and have you had those? And and how do their, their profile, their herd profiles, look like?
Speaker 2:yeah, so unfortunately it's a bit too early.
Speaker 2:Maybe in the next episode I'll be able to talk about this, because stay tuned because yeah we're, yeah, stay tuned, definitely, because we're we're signing up like a lot of those farms and we're like mindful about the different farming systems and we have like a program that we we need a certain amount of farms with a certain farming practice and also we would usually with these sort of farms we would work quite closely. So that would be more like a collaborative effort as well. There's going to be like it's a hybrid, like collaboration and a service in the kind of same package.
Speaker 1:Just to dig deeper into this, because the insights are there To understand what's possible. Yeah, what is possible Exactly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's like everything is in the data, right, and we want to capture that so that these sort of very highly intense systems where animals are, like they're not able to move, for example, it's very important that we get the data from these and the samples from these farms as well and of course, we can help these farms too and then we need that data just to be able to compare these different systems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and do you see that it gets very complicated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, of course.
Speaker 1:But then you see that sort of that sort of space because I remember, I think, talking to Naeem TFT who also invested and we run the syndicate together, and he was saying it's interesting because they seem to attract, seem to work a lot with this more low hanging fruit, like relatively intensive. You would expect, like the region crowd to be all over it. Maybe now they're coming, but, like the really front runners said, actually they're working with a lot of them where there's so much low hanging fruit that in a few months or in a year there are massive differences, also financial possible, but they're definitely not the full pasture based rotational grazing systems yet. And do you see that as well? Did that surprise? Is that, first of all, true? And second, second, did that surprise in terms of cohort of people and farmers that that came to you, that you're working with, compared to what you maybe had in mind before before diving into the dairy space?
Speaker 2:no, I'm not sure. Correct me if I didn't understand your questions correctly. But okay for me because I'm there's a scientist. I know I'm the ceo and I'm very like dealing with the commercial bit at the moment, but there's's still like a scientist in me and my background is in cell biology.
Speaker 2:So I would say like I don't have enough experience yet because in general the farms that sign up for EpiHerb, like we've had, like it's a low threshold to sign up, regardless of the farming system, and probably because we started in finland just because of the kind of network that was there and we did a proof of concept and uh, and now we, we have farmers uh as well in in the uk. First irish farms are subscribing, we're getting some uh farms in the netherlands, soon we have farms in sw Netherlands, soon we have farms in Sweden now. So we're kind of expanding at the moment and fueled by the funding round obviously, but we haven't gotten there yet to have such a big volume that I'd be able to say that okay, these guys are definitely like they have a lower threshold to sign up for EpiHerd.
Speaker 1:And in terms of like first results, or what does it mean financially? For the first, of course it's early, but for the first farmers, like making those changes, just like those early changes of the water system and changes of some certain supplements, some certain minerals, which of course cost money but nothing compared to what these high productive cows need to or can perform. Like what have you seen there in terms of examples, what it means for the farmers and for the farmers' daily life and, of course, their pockets?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Well, in Finland now they have a really tough situation when it comes to like financials At the moment. I think the dairy sector is in like even the financial stability of it is worse than it was, uh, after the second world war. So and they're still keen to sign up. Obviously, some farmers like they, they don't, they're not able to uh, because they they are struggling like all really so much that they they can't even afford to buy the service really uh, which is which is unfortunate. But those who do, yeah, there's we see that they're keen to adopt changes.
Speaker 2:We do have some farms who haven't adopted any changes, but usually those are because of, you know, there's some kind of external reasons for that. So there would be maybe, you know, a divorce or something like happening, you know, on farm or farm or a change of that. The farm is kind of transitioned from the father to the son or the daughter or something like that. That's like the reason behind it. So what we see is, in general, that farmers are really keen. Obviously they buy EpiHer to get insights and then the next step is to apply like those changes on farm, at least some of them. We have a few farms that tick all the boxes. They're amazing. They've done everything.
Speaker 1:And you see that back in the next cycle.
Speaker 2:Yes, we see that. We see the effect in the data and also we see the effect of that we see in the milking data already before we sample another time. So next sampling we would see an improved profile. Yeah, and in terms of the continuity, it's also been very like farmers are excited because they feel that if they would stop sampling and stop adjusting adjusting because there's always like a new batch of feed or you know, there's a new season, there's a new year, whether, like all of these variables that affect every farm this even if you have everything like top notch, they say that they would fly blind without the service, basically. So they they want to keep on testing and some even want to test more often than what is like. Our regular testing interval is once per year at the moment. So we have farms asking for like twice per year. We have a few farms asking for quarterly testing.
Speaker 1:So it's very positive In terms of on an average, of course, or what an example you know in terms of more milk or less disease, less veterinary costs, just what it means for a farm practically when they start adjusting what's in it for them, or what's the return, apart from the animal welfare obviously.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, most of the farms see more milk and we've designed the whole kind of analysis and everything. The first thing we have tapped into is milk yield, because that translates directly into money for the farmer and it's the kind of harsh reality that that is the number one most interesting thing and the reason why you would buy a service like this kind of in the first place in most cases. So, yeah, milk yield increase. However, we also see health effects in farms, for example, less ketosis on farm farm. It's something I've heard like very often what does that mean for the non-dairy?
Speaker 2:people, yeah. So so ketosis it's, uh, like a situation where the dairy farms sorry, the dairy cows metabolism cannot sustain itself, which means that the dairy cow collapses on farm and they call it like a down cow in kind of. You know, in layman terms. So you will need to get the vet in for that and the vet needs to be there for like a couple of hours. So that's already like a cost. And then you need to force feed the like propylene glycol into the cow for it to be able to kind of recover from that state of ketosis. And, yeah, that will cause, like the milk yield obviously to drop. In this cow for a long period of time is massively stressful. It's like a huge emergency situation. So, yeah, that's something that we see less because just because the metabolism is in better shape, because the cow is getting what it really needs, and everything's a balance right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it seems in agriculture and region we're starting to see some companies similar to you. But let's say, to figure out what the tree really needs, to do that kind of analysis in field or regularly enough that you can actually do something. Because unless you have a few generations of experience and you look at your herd every day for hours and you really can observe very well, it's apparently very difficult to understand what a cow needs and unless they're not really able to talk, this is as close as we get. Often, even with the most willing, most clean barn etc. You're just not optimizing at all. There's so much low-hanging fruit in almost every situation which makes it very humbling, probably a very interesting experience. There's so much we didn't know or we thought was fine but actually turns out to be. They're missing xyz or half the herd is not getting water because the other half is dominating the water trough and things like that makes it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we came very far in the dairy industry with all the issues it has. I'm not denying that at all. This is obviously a hugely problematic industry, but we came very far and it didn't seem, and not so far. At the same time it seems like. The things you're discovering are very basic, like minerals, water, certain feed things, of course, pasture outside, sun, inflammation very similar to the human side of things. Let's also not deny that, like we're making, many of us are underperforming in those things as well, and now we're starting to go look at biomarkers and we. There's a lot of functional health space for the human side, but this is like the dairy version and it just, yeah, triggers like what else we don't know on agriculture, in terms of trees, in terms of chickens, in terms of fish, like we have probably no clue.
Speaker 1:Basically, exactly which makes it very exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's exciting it, but it can give you a headache as well, because it's so like yeah, it's so, and everything's interconnected as well. So it it. You know you change something there and then that has an effect.
Speaker 1:So on other things, have you seen some of those like negative effects or unintended consequences or maybe something you thought, okay, we supply this mineral and suddenly actually, or whatever, and it didn't move in the direction. Of course it's not a machine no, actually no.
Speaker 2:So everything we and we're very strict on what we report so currently, like the amount of data from one cow is like that we get is crazy. So because we sequence all the genes that are expressed in the cow, if you would, it's like a letter. You know four letters in the RNA and that it's like the letters. They make up a code for each gene and you could actually take the data because it's in letters. You can print the data into books. So if we make like a book of you know like 10 centimeter, you know like kind of book out of this data, you would have so many books that you would end up with a pile as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 1:For one cow.
Speaker 2:For one cow and one sampling also Of course. Yeah, so every time you sample, you create another Statue of Liberty full of data.
Speaker 1:And so the extra parks we're building.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that's another thing, but probably with the explosion of analyzing that.
Speaker 1:Now you're going to get insights and see insight over the next years as machine learning and AI gets easier and better. Exactly and right now, what we're reporting out of this data is like you know, if you imagine the iceberg in the sea, we don't even report the tip of the iceberg, we like report the snow which is on the tip of the iceberg type of thing.
Speaker 2:How did you select that? What did you select to put in or not? Yeah, so we use insights that are already backed up by scientific literature and studies and validated work. So we don't go and say, hey, we think there is something here, you should do these changes. This is like what we report is absolutely solid and you, as a farmer, you also get the list of references that you can, because you would work normally with your vet, you would work with your nutritionist and then you would look at these things together and the vet could access those articles and studies. And, yeah, that's something we're very excited about, strict about that. We don't report anything, anything that's not been validated yet. So, yeah, and that will change. Obviously, as we find new insights, we validate those. We can feed those also into what we can report to the farmer. So when you sign up for EpiHer now, even the samples you send in, like next week, they will probably serve you like three years from now.
Speaker 1:Because your capabilities of reporting and of making suggestions just incrementally increases over time with more data and with more science and et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1:And then, because you sample the genome and often when people hear that they go oh, the gene side of things is very touchy in terms of editing, which obviously you're not, and what you're doing is the epigenetic side or epigenetic side I don't know if there's the S or not Anyway is what switches on certain genes or what clicks or switches on those buttons, basically, or not, which often turns out to be environment and feed and minerals and the things, sunlight and all the things we've heard, and so it decides if a gene expresses itself or not. I think that's the basic. Does it suggest that you're going to make changes or farmers are going to use this to make changes in the herd as well, in like selecting over time? Is that something you're thinking about? Like to make the herd more adapted to their circumstances, potentially, hopefully being more outside?
Speaker 1:What kind of pasture can they actually grow in Ireland versus Finland versus Italy? Very different. And because we and this is a long, a long way to answer ask a question, but we've really made, I think, the genetic pool, specifically in chickens, but in many other places, very, very narrow, which is tricky, of course, if you're all inside, you have exactly the same feed, sort of okay, but if you start like wandering out more, you need other genes. Like what do you think there and how do you see that, these kinds of tools to enable, let's say, more complexity and more resilience as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think very good question and also so currently we're looking at the RNA in the RNA, so we're not looking at the molecular switches like, for example, dna methylation that causes some genes to be permanently switched off or less easily accessible or accessible and switched on, but that's obviously. We're aware of different sorts of data and also the pipelines we've built is supporting different types of, like this, omics data, so that's sort of like epigenomics data is something we will be interested in the future. We do biobank a lot of samples so that we can do this sort of validation. And yeah, that's I can see.
Speaker 2:Maybe in a few years time, yes, there will be some insights we'll be able to share on that front, like for, yeah, how, like, what sort of inheritance, even like gene expression patterns and these sort of methylation, genomic imprinting, as they call it or it's called. It's shown that it's inherited as well. So that's all these inheritance patterns and everything is something we're going to look at, but currently we don't report that to farmers, but we are very much aware of it. So very interesting topic. And also, yeah, especially when you are transitioning, maybe cows you know that have always been indoors to outdoors, like we might be able to predict or predict for you as a farmer, where you should buy your cows from. If you need to buy more cows and you're looking at transitioning to a different farming system, where do you have the highest probability of succeeding?
Speaker 1:there, which is, of course, fundamental data for any potential successful herd. I remember I think it was in the interview I don't know if we discussed it in the interview, but with Fred Provenza, but for sure it's in his book where he talks about a herd research, I think on the beef side. Like over the years over, like it's like a herd somehow outside this is in the us, mostly outside gets. Like there's a certain knowledge transferred between the different generations on what to eat, where to eat, how to eat, and they basically challenged that by moving a herd from one place to the other and it was completely lost, like it didn't know where to get the medicinal plants it had. Like the herd yeah, yeah, really learns, even if they're different generations in between. There is a pattern there, of course, potentially in the genes, but mostly like the older cows will definitely teach you what to eat, in what moments and how and what. Well, that's all.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's also like behavioral patterns are learned from the kind of you know the mother or kind of your parents. You would learn, you know, behavioral patterns and what to do from them. There's studies, and there's one interesting study that shows where they were looking at rats and fear of a certain smell of these rats. And these rats inherited a fear of a certain smell, like it was a fruity kind of, like this molecule that gives a fruity smell.
Speaker 1:Even though they were never exposed to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were never exposed to their parents and the parents' behavior. They were separated at birth. They still inherited this fear of smell and they had a higher kind of density of these receptors that picked up that molecule from the air in their kind of nasal cavities. So it's very interesting.
Speaker 1:Makes you humble about genes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So in that sense, yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah, we don't really know what you can inherit and what's learned from your parents. I'm sure I think we'd be surprised. There's already that sort of evidence out there that shows that a lot of interesting things can be inherited via genomic imprinting and epigenetics.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very interesting. I remember it's not not inherent as I remember a video or description, I think, from anna van leeuwen lenteland, farmer at kajo in the netherlands, that have been testing leaving small chickens or chicks with their parents or with their mother for much longer, and so they pick up how to eat and how to hunt for insects and how to weigh, more than, of course, if they're in a breeder inside. Never seen the flock until they get outside and they just tested it very small. But there's a massive increase in massive impact on that small flock and also in terms of health, in terms of issues, because, yeah, they are trained and probably can express a lot of things that anyway, were buried in them but cannot be expressed inside under a brooder lamp. So I think there's so much, yeah, let's say, blue ocean in the animal husbandry, especially if we start connecting it and you're not there yet but to the quality of the milk and then the human health.
Speaker 1:Because then it becomes, yeah, something people or industry might want to pay for, if it's connected to lower costs, et cetera. Of course there's massive and just more milk. It helps farmers tomorrow, which is fundamental and needs to happen. But for really for a sector to change, we need to start showing that pasture management and pasture is in all means superior almost always superior and makes sense. Of course, not easy, because there's a reason we put everything inside and industrialized it. But then also we're going to need more different genetics, we're going to meet different cows and different feeding patterns and all of that, which is very interesting to think about. How much is hidden in that data?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And on this journey from horses to dairy cows and you've raised quite a bit of money I always like to ask this question of what would you like to tell or would you like to share with the financial industry with financial people, meaning people that manage their own money or other people's money. I always like to say, let's say we do this in the theater, we had a fascinating deep dive on dairy, and we might even taste different things maybe different milks and different dairy steak from den barber and things like that just to with a room full of investors, maybe in housing key or or somewhere where there are a lot of uh, let's say, the financial heart nearby you. But then is there one thing you want them to remember, because people forget next day at work. They might not be, they might be excited, but they don't really grasp everything we discussed on stage. If there's one seed you want to plant in the financial mind from all the experience you have, what would that seed be?
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, okay, I think so for me, because I started the company from totally like zero. This is not a spinoff from the university or anything. This is like a subject that's really close to my heart, because I've walked a walk and I couldn't walk it and my team walks the walk with me, and we couldn't do it without the investors and, like you, you're a superhero.
Speaker 2:No, but seriously, you're like a superhero and never, never, forget that. Because this is we're unlocking an entire layer of data, new layer to an entire sector and beyond also, not only, as I said, species agnostic great potential, like from soil to human health. It's not just one sector we're working with here. The impact is massive and my life would be different if it wasn't for people like you and the investors who come to these events. So somehow, I don't know, I think that's super important and for early stage investors to really they're heroes, because new stuff like that makes the world a better place comes out um, that that's like my genuine you know answer. I don't know how, how to, how to implement that like, uh, you know, in in an event in helsinki, for example.
Speaker 1:But this is like stage, like like put your money where your mouth is, as, yeah, mimic likes to say, which is a way your community is, which is true. I think there's a saying risk because, of course, our investments are hugely risky. This is all early stage, let's not pretend anything different, but there's a lot of money available that should flow and that isn't because of all kinds of, let's say, holding back things and we complain, we say there is no deal flow, there's not enough deal flow, nor nor this or that, or it's not exactly the round hole. I would like to squeeze something square through, because I'm expecting actually, I don't know about animals and I want.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they're all valid, but then means there's no innovation whatsoever and with a little bit of money, because, honestly, we didn't put a whole lot, and I personally put always two or five gain in a deal or it makes a massive difference and so that's it makes.
Speaker 2:That's the thing. Like people laugh. And I've been laughed at when I was pitching and I wanted to raise like 30 000 euros and they're like, huh, what are you gonna do with 30 000? You know that was on a stage in an event and uh, yeah, it's. You know, you, you can, you can do stuff with 30k, but like it's, yeah, you know, I think people should like there should be more support around like early stage companies and founders, and yeah, it's something that's a bit like. You know it's a bit sandboxy also, because when you start, like my first presentations, they were horrible, seriously. But you know, when you can look beyond those and see that there's like some potential here and invest, and then, yeah, like we need more of that you know, yeah, and who knows, it might be one in 10 or one in five, I mean.
Speaker 1:But there's a let's say there's a good chunk of the population and I'm definitely not talking about all that could put more money in this and we need that, and we need more people building stuff. We don't have enough people building things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because the threshold is so high, like it's so hard to also like the amount of sacrifice I've made is ridiculous and I, yeah, I understand why people don't do this totally and and that's fine.
Speaker 2:But now, like the people who invested, you need to know that every farm that signs up for EpiHerd, the cows are feeling better, they're happier, they're less stressed, they have less down cows who lie on the floor and need propylene glycol. The farmers they're making more money. Glycol. Uh, the farmers like they, they're making more money and they're like, this is not, you know, farmers that or some are, yeah, you know well, kind of, uh, established and economically stable, uh, kind of organizations almost. But the reality is that you have farmers who are like it's a couple, for example, who struggle to even you know they're looking at what they can buy for food because they're trying to, you know, like, help the cows and invest into their to make the life of their cows and the herd better, and they can't even take holidays, they can't go for, you know, to Canary Islands or whatever from gloomy Finland when it's really dark, because they simply don't have the money. And now we have farms that can and they say that it's so different to go to work.
Speaker 1:Do you have an example, like a concrete one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the farmer, like this farmer almost made me cry in this one session. We were looking at like the user interface of EpiHerd and I was just there like a fly on a wall type of thing because I like to do that and also the farmer was Finnish, so there's a bit of a sometimes a language barrier. So I'm there to support if sometimes, if I need to. And that was like there was a product manager on the call and she was leading it and she was asking, basically, what do you think about this interface mock-up and do you find this like where would you click and is this button clear? This sort of development questions.
Speaker 2:And then, like in maybe 30 minutes into the call, the farmer just all of a sudden, like we didn't ask anything, he was like giving feedback on the buttons of the interface and then he started to talk. He was like yeah, it's, you know, guys, I really like to go to work now, like in the mornings. It's so nice because it's so frustrating to go to work when you don't know what's wrong with the herd and you're trying your best and you know you're running out of money. And it's very frustrating when you don't know what's wrong. And EpiHerd showed us what was wrong and then we could correct it and we could direct the investment, the little investment we had, towards those actions. And now, like we're making so much more milk, we can, you know, we, we have booked a holiday.
Speaker 2:It's like you guys changed our lives and it's, you know, and I was putting putting my hair like this, you know so that they wouldn't see like because I was like one of my eyes, the tear was going like down my cheek there and I yeah sometimes happy that we're on this you know remote calls because I was trying to yeah, my connection.
Speaker 2:Yes, my connection might be a bit bad here. My voice is shaky. It's the connection. No, seriously, it's like it was amazing. And going back, you know, to your question about the investors, we wouldn't like I wouldn't have been on the call if it wasn't for you guys. So, yeah, we need more of that I think, you gave me the title sending dairy farmers on holiday is yes, yeah, they need more holidays they definitely need because they're so hard working.
Speaker 1:It's ridiculous, yeah, and it's such a yeah it's such an interesting again like they do everything and of course there's the animal welfare and they just don't know what's wrong and what's not working. And even if the cleanest barn is not getting inflammation down, there's clearly something off. And we've seen that also with a lot of the studies. I think we talked about it long ago when we connected with Pierre Weil of Bleu Blanc Coeur in France showing the impact of feed on omega-3,6 ratios of milk. Like very quickly, like in a month or two. They were very worried about soy coming into the country as a feed source and they were worried about the quality. And they've done mostly in French, unfortunately studies on even impact on mothers in terms of what kind of animal protein they were consuming and how the breast milk changed within a month. And all of those studies are there and it is connected to pasture management. But then if you don't really know what is wrong with which cow or what is wrong with her, you can just say, oh, these are good or these are not.
Speaker 1:That's not a very hopeful message for the struggling dairy farmer that has no idea how to even get to this amazing example of continuous grazing 360 days outside, etc. Yeah, that's great, but how do you which? What do you do tomorrow? And I would add to a message to the investors like it's you and the entrepreneurs doing the hard work, like really know your place as well, in a sense, of you.
Speaker 1:We all have quite a comfortable not that I'm a big investor, but it's definitely not that kind of life or death stress of trying to not life or death of the company, obviously of trying to run a company and raising 30k here, 50k, 100, trying to build something completely new. Like it requires a lot of we. It owes us a lot of respect because all innovation comes from there, even though most of it doesn't work. That's the sort of and like we owe everything to entrepreneurs building things and to the government and to but even though we know that probably it's going to fail, unfortunately, like all the startups, we see a big chunk. Yeah, it just didn't fit, didn't make it because it's so incredibly hard, as you said before. So, yes, we need to back more, but also we need to back off sometimes and let it run.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it wants to be run. Yeah, and I think also because of the like, obviously fundraising is very stressful, it's like mega stressful. I don't know anyone who's like said that, oh, it was so much fun, uh, and really enjoyed it. It's super stressful. So, yeah, and the setting already like I think there's a lot of innovation that gets kind of smothered because people give up just because it's such a harsh environment. And I know there's a lot of talk about, like, female founders, and something I've noticed is also that it's so much easier, right, as a female founder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so much easier. No, like it's easy to get to talk to people and get to explain things. But then I found this that they look down on you as a little girl and I'm, you know, I'm a little girl but also I know how to execute things. So, or yeah, I'm a little girl but also I know how to execute things. So, uh, or yeah, I'm a grown up woman, obviously, but uh, there is a, you know, a little girl in me and I, I'm uh, to be funny, I'm, I'm playful and that's the way also, you know, with the inflatable cows. I mean, I was fully supporting this thing at Groundswell.
Speaker 1:I think that was awesome, but it got A lot of dairy farmers. It was a very effective gimmick.
Speaker 2:Exactly. But I face like this sort of it's hard to get things over the line, like people in general listen and maybe they listen even more hours to me because I'm female, but then they end up saying no in the end. So you end up you're like your time is consumed because they like talking to you, like you know, but then it's like, oh no, we couldn't get this over the line, bye, kind of. And then people, some people reach out like I like that, you know. They're like how is it going? You know, it was very inspiring. I would have invested if it wasn't for the ic. You know things like this, but it's like come on.
Speaker 1:Like, put your own money in it. Like, come to our syndicate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:If you can, you can apply.
Speaker 1:And there's no excuses. I find it so frustrating that they put it on somebody else. It means if the IC didn't okay, it probably it meant something in the preparation going wrong, like an IC is meant, as far as I understand, to okay things that have been prepared really well and maybe once in a while send something back because there's some questions. But if it regularly happens, it just I'm sorry means you didn't do your job and that's like just holding on somebody, especially wasting somebody's time. That is very precious as an entrepreneur. It's just not cool.
Speaker 2:True, it's true. And when you try to run the company, like fundraising is a full-time job. So I think a lot of companies, like a lot of innovation, is smothered because of how things are run on that front and kind of you know, prove it to me Like this sort of attitude makes like some brilliant minds and people who are brilliant at executing things are maybe not the best presenters or they get like super nervous, freeze, whatever, and then there's, it just gets like smothered because of you. You need to fit a certain mold and there's a lot of innovation going, going to the drain, I think.
Speaker 1:Or do you see a difference with like female investors and male investors? Have you seen that? Or it's a sample size? Unfortunately, most investors are white, male and certain age.
Speaker 2:It's true, yeah, yeah, but have you experienced any?
Speaker 1:difference.
Speaker 2:Not directly, except, yes, I have, yes, the female investors. They don't waste so much time Like that's my like experience. So they would say, like they would be pretty clinical and professional about, okay, this is you know, uh, like let's not have more calls because you know we're not gonna invest because of this is, uh, whilst I feel like with male investors things would drag much longer and longer and longer and longer, and then you kind of you put them in the basket of you know, these are almost over the line and then they drop off. I've had that so many times.
Speaker 1:yeah, it's and I'm sorry for like my whole gender oh, it's good, it's good. No, it's not good it's wasting time, I mean you do for them, which is education for them, which is also important. But there are other ways to educate and not wasting an early stage of nurse time which is very valuable.
Speaker 2:at that point, I heard something else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true, technology and approach in a sector. Do you worry about a competition to a certain extent, but also, like the sector is really. Um, I mean, there are forces in the sector are really dependent on this current model in terms of a lot of supplements, a lot of feed. Like the only ones making money in the cave operations are the people selling the genetics and the feed and the machines. Pretty much probably there's a third or fourth somewhere there, but definitely not the genetics and the feed and the machines. Pretty much Probably there's a third or fourth somewhere there, but definitely not the farmers nor the consumers that are getting not amazing quality and the animals, obviously. And like, are you worried in? Not worried in that sense, but that there is going to be a lot of pushback from certain? Have you seen, sensed any of that? Is that too early? Have they tried to invest as well?
Speaker 1:You're like actually, I don't need that, because that might be one of those examples of buying and shelving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, oh, so good, Such a good question, yes, okay, let's start from. Yeah, we've had feed companies who have been extremely interested in investing and we could have gone down that route with a couple of these companies already in, like not this round, but the one before. But we decided not to do that because when I put my boots on and I go to the farm, I don't think I've been at any farm who hasn't pointed out the fact, and I love their honesty, like honestly, farmers are amazing because they just say like what they think and what they need. Like most of them Actually every farmer probably that I've been to like visit, that I had coffee table discussions said we trust you guys and also, we really liked the fact and that's the reason why we trust you is because you are not trying to sell us anything. You know you're not doing the test and then you try to sell us sperm or you try to sell us these supplements or you try to sell us like whatever you know solutions, because then we don't know if you're looking at the data and thinking about the best of us, or whether you're looking at the data and seeing how you can make most profit of it yourself and sell us different things.
Speaker 2:So and that's very, it's very common and I'm very proud about this that we deliver the data and you, as a farmer, you can look with your vet, with your nutritional expert, whether you know where you source these things from. We have had some some there's been issues sourcing materials so we can listen to other farmers, like in a certain region and listen to them where they source certain feed, and some farmers have, like approached us and said, hey, we cannot source this, can you help us? So we're figuring out a model and we're also working like with many feed companies at the moment just to see, like, how we can do, could do that in like an open way and not not, you know, marry ourselves with one feed company and start selling their supplements. Yeah, and then the other thing is the data.
Speaker 2:We get the data so we will also see what, what supplements you know are working actually work yeah, which ones are maybe not optimal and maybe it has to do with the herd, you know, and how they absorb the nutrients. We had one farm that changed vitamin A supplementation. They had all the like kind of looking at, even just at the milking data and the herd, like you know. Know there was a lot of silent heats and there was like these issues that were referring to, uh, vitamin a deficiency. But then the feed expert said, like they're getting enough vitamin a on paper you can see, like you know they're being fed that. But the farmer decided to change to another brand and like a liquid form when they had didn't have that before and two weeks from that, like day when they got the new supplement, they saw a change in the herd dynamics. The cows were more active, less silent heats so yeah, silent heats, sorry yeah, so that would be when.
Speaker 2:So if you have, for example, a milking robot that uh detects the activity of of the animal, so you would monitor the activity through, like the cows would have a color and you'd be able to say when they are in heat. But sometimes the system cannot detect it. If they're too like, they're not so active, the activity doesn't change. The hormonal like changes are there and the cow is in heat, but it's not displaying it in the kind of activity patterns. And that's when you call it a silent heat, because you can't see it, the system doesn't alarm. Hey, that cow is in heat, now you should inseminate. So they lost a lot of- Opportunity.
Speaker 2:Opportunities, yeah, for insemination there, and also the cows required more like to be inseminated several times before they got pregnant. So, yeah, that was interesting that they saw a change, just from changing the kind of type of supplement they were giving to the animals.
Speaker 1:And in terms of, like, longevity of companies and things like this. I mean this seems relatively quick but often this takes quite a lot of time to really build to like full potential in terms of a company with this kind of potentially disruptive impact. Have you looked at and added, in terms of what kind of or type of capital you attract? As well in terms of speed of people need exits? I mean, vc funds are traditionally structured. Vc funds need the exit after max seven, eight years, maybe pushing it somewhere. Is that something you've looked at? There are not so many evergreen impact funds, but is it something you looked at in terms of how long this marathon is or in terms of of the let's say, the fitness of the capital to that?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. You know, with a great team that's a good fit. You know your team members, you can build great things. But that kind of thing extends also to the investors, because I'm so fortunate to now have investors on board who are like they're there for the long run and they're there for the impact. They're not interested in the short term benefits or numbers or that they can get their return on investment in a few years time. Obviously we work hard to be able to get that return of investment as soon as possible and start also to expand to, you know, to have a profitable business that we can expand where, where we are going beyond livestock and well beyond cows first. But having that sort of investors it's so important because I feel that's one.
Speaker 2:Maybe going through the last round I saw it as one of the biggest risks because it's such a deep technology. It's a huge risk if you get an investor on board who doesn't really care about the technology too much and they want a short term ROI and then you're never going to be able to go big and maybe you even fail because they're pushing you to reach different KPIs which are not relevant to the long-term and the sustainability of the business and of this sort of a business, and I found it hard in general with the deep tech element. Few people understand really the full picture. I wouldn't say I understand the full picture of anything. You always learn and develop, but it's hard to find people who truly understand the more longer-term picture and the holistic nature of things. So, yeah, having an investor on board that isn't in line, I could see how that could be fatal for a company and, of course, if you don't have a chance like, then you need to like. If you don't have any, sorry any other choice?
Speaker 2:yeah, any other options on the table? You take the money yeah you have to, you have to, and then, then you just need to make sure that they cannot like decide to run the company, for example, the governance, yeah, yeah but then that's going to drain the founders of the company and the team, because then we'll constantly have this friction towards investors, because they want to see something and we want to develop something that's really like long-term, sustainable and delivers a massive impact and a massive ROI as well. Yeah, very important, very important.
Speaker 1:And what would you do? Because this is a nice bridge too. We always like to ask a billion dollar euro question, like what would you do if you'd be on the other side and you would be an investor that had to put those amounts to work? I'm not saying it's good that anybody has that kind of concentration of wealth, but I'm saying it just happens Tomorrow morning, you're in charge of that and it just happens tomorrow morning you're in charge of that. And I'm not looking for euro amounts or dollar amounts we're not giving investment advice but I'm looking for what are top priorities. If you had to do that and where would be big buckets, let's say you would be investing if you had that kind of resources available.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd probably like, as I said, the early stage is like, so close to my heart I'd probably have something well, which is a billion is a lot.
Speaker 1:Obviously yeah. Do you see others around you you would love to invest in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, and also I don't have to like to be honest, I'm so much in my work I don't have too much time in like I do meet founders, but it's kind of by chance and also what I read online, but but I kind of I'm not in those like kind of accelerators. You know, seeing everything that's out there and also the early stage stuff, like before it's out there, you really need to go somewhere to to catch it as well. So so it's because it's not gonna be in in Forbes or anywhere.
Speaker 1:But it must be people reaching out to you because they know your story, they've seen you and you must have had some time. Yeah, they have Like a one-on-one conversation. You're like oh, if I had some money I would do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would. So definitely early stage would be a focus. I'd also do more mature investments just to bring the kind of de-risk a little bit. More mature investments just to like bring the kind of de-risk a little bit. But then what I'd probably do? Because I'd focus on data, like we love data. So companies that generate data know how to handle it, from different like systems, from soil, animals to you know the kind of nutritional data, market data, all the way to human health, because a billion is a lot now.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I kind of tried to bridge that with different interesting portfolio company opportunities. And then what I do because everyone wants, we'd love to collaborate with people much more than what we can at the moment and we're delivering a product to the market that we need to build and it's like you know, resources are like we don't you know time and the team is like we're really stretched so just by like delivering this. So I'd love to be able to support collaboration without like taking too much of the team's time, like they can focus on what they're building. So what I maybe would do maybe this is crazy, I don't know, I'm not viable but I'd have like an umbrella organization where I would recruit like a key cast team to actually like tap into these companies and to what they're building on the data and see how we could bridge those together in a more efficient way without taking, you know, because this is like blue sky big things, um, and not not for the short-term kind of kpis that these companies are dealing with.
Speaker 1:So I try to also be almost like a holding company holding company with strategic investments in these companies and then through that, yeah, really work on the long term.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, yeah, something like that yeah Interesting.
Speaker 1:So if somebody's listening, just get in touch with Maria.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can put you in touch, don't worry, reach out to me. We can make that connection work.
Speaker 2:But the key is to have that team that can do the work, because the the teams are not gonna have time to do the big blue sky like, then you're just a bird, and if you're an investor and you're like, hey, but now we have this umbrella project you all need to contribute to and we're gonna need 20 percent of your time for this. It's.
Speaker 1:It's not gonna like work so how would you get that out? Do you need to compensate for money with that, or do you to be a strategic investor in all of these companies?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think strategic, yeah, investor, but have a team in that umbrella that does that.
Speaker 2:And that's a commercial entity itself almost, or in a way they really need to be good Like ambition for going to have that drive to actually execute and bring those like dots of data together, yeah, bridge kind of the gap, and that entity could feed like fantastic insights to the companies and also new IP could be generated that way. So it's it's, but yeah, it's all in the people. I'd say that's something also. I would invest a lot of time in in trying to identify the right. You know sort of I know say that's something also I would invest a lot of time in in try to identify the right. You know sort of I know where all the investors do that I'll probably do the pitching and all of that in a different way because, yeah, I'm not sure you can pick up on 30 minutes on a zoom call whether you know this founder is has the urge to do that.
Speaker 1:How would you do that if you would be investing? How would you approach that?
Speaker 2:I don't know, do something crazy. I'd probably put them in a hot tub or something and speak to them.
Speaker 2:Like you know, arrange something like this, yeah, to really get to know the people, like on a more profound level than just listening on 30 minutes and kind of not taking into effect the human kind of factor there, because humans, we are the ones who build things. So I think that's massively neglected and also why the racial companies fail. So you know, like when you invest in 10 companies, like nine are going to fail because maybe there's a great idea, but then there was another opportunity, like the founder doesn't burn, you know so much for it. Maybe they want to do something else. There's a greater thing. And they jump and you need to feel that like, yeah, the, the loyalty and the yeah, the oomph. I don't know how you capture it, it's yeah, by by sticking someone in a hot tub or in a cow suit or something like exactly, yeah, yeah, do something a bit like outside of the box.
Speaker 1:I love that and as a final question, which usually leads to other final questions, but if you had a magic wand and you could change one thing overnight, what would that be?
Speaker 2:Because, okay, because we're so into data now and the data explains everything.
Speaker 2:In the end of the day, you can make arguments if you have enough data and the science to back that up, and you can change things by doing that.
Speaker 2:I would say, because data management is not so easy and, in the format the data comes in, it's not always easy to decipher and use it.
Speaker 2:So if I had a magic wand, I'd love to spread this magic wand over to all the companies, even the farmers, like everybody, and they can touch their data with it, and the data would become like their data, which means that it's findable, it's accessible, it's interoperable as well and it's reusable. So, basically, it standardizes the data and the language, like the format and the language and everything about the data makes it standardized in a way that it can be used in any sort of analysis system. I think a lot of time is spent and a lot of the challenges come from the data is fragmented, it's in, like you said, there's a lot of research, but it's all in French, like yeah, this is like, just like one example. But yeah, data management is not easy and there's big challenges there and the reason why we don't have so many insights from the data is because it's hard to verify it. So I'd have the verification magic wand.
Speaker 1:And do you see, that's getting easier now with the whole AI hype and boom and dust. I mean it depends when you listen to this. It might have crashed, but there's definitely something there. I mean, people are going as yeah, there's some support like that.
Speaker 2:But then, yeah, ai, but, like you know, the garbage in, garbage out type of thing, and this is the problem with when the data is not fair, then it's kind of garbage and and yeah, of course, a I can help with verifying data, but you need to be really strict. It's it's. It's a complex, just like regenerative agriculture is very complex and things are linked to each other and and yeah, if something goes wrong in one part, then that has a network effect on everything else. Yeah, I see the same like is with the data and the AI can the mistakes and things like that the AI can make before we're there.
Speaker 2:Maybe, someone will create. You know if you can create a magic AI wand. You know that does this. Anything is possible, right? So if someone is listening to this, someone wants to create a magic AI wand, you know that does this. Anything is possible, right? So if someone is listening to this and wants to create the magic wand, that would be of massive help. I think yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think what's interesting in agriculture and food is that we don't have a lot of the primary data, like we don't know how herds are behaving and why they're not behaving. We don't have the genetic profile, we don't have the genome. We don't have a lot of sensors. Honestly, we don't have biodiversity data. We have a lot of models that are, yeah, better than no models.
Speaker 2:It's true.
Speaker 1:And we don't know how trees are actually doing and what they need or miss. So there's even an earlier step in that process is of how do we gather the data before we even start dreaming about okay.
Speaker 1:True yeah, of course, antler Bio in a bit.
Speaker 1:You could feed a lot of the data in a very well-guarded garden of a large language model or an AI engine and then start asking questions. But very well-guarded because otherwise it starts to hallucinate with all kinds of honestly useless papers or useless data sets that have nothing to do with it, because it's dairy in New Zealand or because it's not verified or it's not, and so there's a much more basic missing pieces that we don't have a lot of data to actually feed any model, let alone ask any questions to a model. So that's going to be very interesting to see as that exponentially grows, with all your tests, like every quarter, every year, every half a year, and getting more different kind of farmers, like is that a big difference? Actually, look, you see, the last question always leads to other questions, like genetics of cows, like the different types of cows I don't know, in france they use x and in the netherlands, like, is that very complex for you or complicated? Sorry, it's not a complex question. Is it complicated or it's relatively standard?
Speaker 2:I love that question because that's farmers ask also like oh, but I have these cows.
Speaker 1:What do I do?
Speaker 2:yeah, I have this, like you know hybrid like interesting yeah, yeah, that I you know there are many. Many farmers are really into different breeds, um, and they ask like, oh, but I have these breeds. You know, maybe I can't even buy epiherd, because I can't buy genomic tests, for example, because they only like if I would have love how you say epiherd.
Speaker 1:It's like epigenetics, but it sounds like happy herd.
Speaker 2:Happy herd exactly. Maybe we will have a side product one day named happy herd.
Speaker 1:It makes your herd happy. I mean it is, yes, it's true.
Speaker 2:Anyway, sorry, I'm just yeah, no, that's funny, yeah, but yeah, it doesn't matter what breed you have. We can deal with the data and we get the same insights from an Ayrshire cow, a mixed breed of Cemental, and something we have, Swiss Brown. We have really strange breeds, or lovely, I would say. We have a cow which is like a northern Finnish. You know this breed which is like almost the size of a dog, and yeah, we, of course, when we saw it, we couldn't. We had a chat. This is a farm we collaborate very closely with. We couldn't help ourselves to sample that because also it's for the conservation of the breed. It's very important information. So, yeah, it doesn't matter and we can. Even from these interesting breeds we can get insights to the farmers.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of potential there. Obviously, once we bank that data and we start to see patterns, yeah, we can be able to help farmers not only within your farm in terms of certain breed like what sort of breeds you should maybe be looking at, or things like that but also just on the global side of things. Once we have herds from different countries with different breeds, it's getting very interesting to see what patterns we can pick out from there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and especially then, of course, when the connection comes to the quality of the animal protein, in this case the milk and the milk products coming out of them.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, the human side. Yeah, we may be finally able to reward farmers that are sticking to different herds or different genetics, different geographies, really against all odds, having their cows outside all year round and actually delivering a completely different product. But until now, unless they develop their own products and butter and they manage to sell semi-directly, they're going into the big tank and it's sort of commodified and there's no reward for that extra work they put in.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, and they should be rewarded. And there's no reward for that extra work they put in, exactly, exactly and they should be rewarded. That's something that, also, going back to the angel investors and my big, my passion is to see that Obviously now already. Like, happy cows are happier when the farmer signs the herd up for EpiHerd. But, yeah, also the farmers, yeah, farmers are happier and do you track that?
Speaker 1:Is there a way of also sampling their blood?
Speaker 2:We've been discussing this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like farmer's mental health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've been discussing because we see such a profound impact also, I mean, it's something that should be captured and they would be incentivized, like they're already sharing. Like, as I told you, they would be incentivized. They're already sharing, as I told you. The farmer who was on this call about buttons do you like this interface? And started to talk about their work and opening up about how they like it. Definitely it's an area I would like to explore. Yeah, just to show.
Speaker 1:We might need some wearables.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly we need some wearables and farmers.
Speaker 1:Now you're giving me ideas and or a simple, a very simple signature could just be how many holidays have you taken holiday this year, when it was the last one you took? And that of course, depends if you have somebody to take over and all, but it is probably. It's an interesting signal in terms of how they are doing, but I would be very interested in the wearable data and potentially their blood sampling as well. Just stress like cortisone levels. I would like to see that honestly.
Speaker 2:We're diverging from long-term vision. Yeah, just to finalize, we had farmers ask could you test my brother as well? We had a farmer asking that, which tells a lot, I guess, about the technology.
Speaker 1:So the brother dressed up as a cow, and then passed the test.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because we said obviously we're not testing humans at the moment, so no, unfortunately that's not available.
Speaker 1:So yeah, maybe they would find a way. You were like, wow, what was this blood sample? This is weird.
Speaker 2:Exactly, this looks strange. An outlier. Yeah, we would pick that up.
Speaker 1:With that, I want to thank you so much for coming on here and spending an hour and a half with us in your very busy schedule, of course. To thank you so much for coming on here and spending an hour and a half with us and your very busy schedule, of course. Thank you for allowing us to invest. You're doing the hard work, not us, and we're just fortunate to be able to back people like you and for the work you do, obviously and spending a bit of time with us to share your journey.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thank you, it was such a pleasure. Let's make another one when we have some interesting stuff.
Speaker 1:More data. We're talking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening all the way to the end. For show notes and links discussed, check out our website investinginregenerativeagriculturecom slash posts. If you liked this episode, why not share it with a friend and get in touch with us on social media, our website or via the Spotify app, and tell us what you liked most and give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your podcast player. That really really helps us. Thanks again and see you next time.
