1. Probiotics for Agriculture
December 10th, 2013
Total interviews: 75

2. The Pivot Team
Karsten Temme
CEO
Alvin Tamsir
CSO
Emily Tung
Researcher
John Cumbers
Mentor

3. Week 1
•
•
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Academic labs
UC Davis Soil Ecology group •
SynBerc
AgBio industry leaders
Science – lab POC
Field trials
Regulatory engagement
Establish AgBio
partnership for sales
channels
• Inoculant distribution
• Customer service
• Public relations
• Reduced risk of loss in
drought
• Improved yield
• Organic
• Lower human and
equipment costs
• Direct relationships
• Self service (3rd party
purchases)
• On-farm interactions
• Potential collaborative
relationships
Dow Corning
Bayer
Monsanto
TBD:
- Fermentation scale up
- Packaging and prep
Farmers
• Corn
• Wheat
• Rice
Corporate farm
Family farm
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•
•
•
•
•
Synthetic biology IP
Next gen sequencing IP
Proprietary microbes
Regulatory awareness
Sales staff
Production staff and
facility
• Direct sales
• Local supplier / grain
elevator
• Seed companies
• Fertilizer companies
• State fairs
• Inoculant purchases
• Next-gen sequencing diagnostic
• Licensing royalties
Organic
Conventional

4. Crops
Treatments
GM
Strains
Natural
Strains
Probiotic
Mixture
Natural
Strains
• Germinated in sterile greenhouse conditions
• CA dominates US tomato cultivation
Fermented
Metabolites

5. Week 1
• Reduced risk of loss in
drought
• Improved yield
• Organic
• Lower human and
equipment costs
Week 5
Farmers
• Corn
• Wheat
• Rice
• Tomato seed companies
• Tomato nurseries
Corporate farm
Family farm
Organic
Conventional
• Tomato farmers
• Seed coating companies

6. Customer archetype
•
•
•
•
Manager of HeinzSeed Global
60+ years of tomato seed breeding
Develops most of top tomato varieties
Looks for new technologies to improve tomato
production
Plant
health
Fruit
quality
Dale Smith
HeinzSeed
Disease
resistance
Yield
Drought
tolerance
Germination

7. US Commercial Processing Tomato Industry
Acreage:
Location:
Market Size:
300,000 acres
95% in CA
$700M
Break even:
Average:
Highest:
40 tons / acre
48 tons / acre
70 tons / acre
“10% yield improvement would be significant”

8. Channels and Market Structure
Product Flow
Cash Flow
Seed production
Seed breeders
Seed treatment
Seed distributors
Grading and Processing
Nurseries
Commercial Farms

9. The MVP
Tomato Seeds
Seed breeders
Seed production
50% market
Seed treatment
Heinz
Value based pricing
Yield Increase - $70M
Current
$700M
$10M
Heinz + Pivot
Value if MVP applied to
Top 10 Varieties of 2013
$7.5M
To Farmers - $35M
$5M
To Greenhouses - $4M
To Seed Breeders - $3M
Pivot (40%) - $28M
$2.5M
Red = Heinz varieties

10. Building the MVP: Key Metrics
MVP
Now
Q1 2014
Q2 2014
Q3 2014
Greenhouse Trial
Q4 2014
Field Trial
R&D Activites
Milestone
Cost
• Endophyte Isolation
• 500 relevant strains
$30k
• Sequencing and Analytics
• All genomes annotated and scored
$50k
• Selection and Optimization
• 50 high confidence strains
$140k
• Greenhouse Trial
• 10% yield increase
$60k
Personnel: 1 bioinformatician
Partners (done): Greenhouse (UC Berkeley), NGS (Seqmatic), Heinz and Germains
IP: File composition of matter on 50 high confidence strains
Economics: Validate revenue sharing hypotheses, negotiate field trial financing

11. Week 10

12. Senior customer endorsement
Operational plan validated
Talent recruited
IP strategy and KOL network
“Proof of Relevance” defined
Timeline and cost to data points
Strategic fit in portfolio validated
Technology confirmed
First pass canvas