Ashley Beckwith has spent years of her academic and professional career focusing on the intersection of biology, materials, and manufacturing to build medical solutions more efficiently. When she realized that this technique could be applied to plants and plant materials, an area where it was in dire need, she decided to change her approach.
“Life on Earth is only as secure as our global plant population, and today our plant population is in real crisis,” Beckwith told TechCrunch. “Nearly 40% of our plant species are threatened with extinction. Forest landscapes untouched by humans have shrunk by 12%.” [in 2022]. These plant resources are under pressure on all fronts.
Beckwith took what she knew about biofabrication, the process of using microorganisms and cell cultures to produce biological molecules and materials on a commercial scale, and launched Foray Bioscience in February 2022. The company uses biofabrication to grow harvest-free plant materials and seeds. And molecules.
Biomanufacturing has been around for about 100 years, but it hasn’t had many practical use cases for plants until now, Beckwith said. Because different plant species are so diverse, there hasn’t been a one-size-fits-all approach to cell culture, making biomanufacturing using plant cell cultures a daunting task. Foray is looking to change that with its database approach, providing predictive insights and experimental guidance to help accelerate the research and development process for every type of plant.
“At Foray, we are developing these advanced tools for factoryless production to demand less of these resources and start delivering more,” Beckwith said.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup has raised a $3 million seed funding round led by ReGen Ventures, an Australian company focused on supporting technology that helps restore the planet’s resources. Engine Ventures, Understorey Ventures, and Superorganism also participated in the round. The startup has now raised $3.875 million in total funding and plans to build out its team.
Beckwith said it took a while to raise money because what the company is trying to do doesn’t fit directly into one category, but rather cuts across many, from manufacturing to biology to environmental conservation. This “odd ball” feeling is something Beckwith is accustomed to encountering. She said the reason she initially started the company was because there was no natural habitat for the research she was conducting into plant biomanufacturing.
“I was in this weird interdisciplinary bubble,” Beckwith said. “This was clear to me as I approached the end of my PhD. If this research was going to move forward and move forward, I had to take it forward to the next version of itself. Because of the newness of this field, there wasn’t really a place for it in the academic environment or in “We had to create our own manufacturing environment.”
She described getting the science out of the lab and launching the company as a “long journey.” The startup is currently working with other companies to help them set up their biomanufacturing by designing an R&D roadmap for its customers and helping them develop commercialization strategies.
Beckwith also has a vision that this work will allow Foray to create a gene banking system for plant seeds, especially those that are not easy to document, and will allow new seeds to be grown from just a few cells. This will help with conservation efforts as well.
There are many similarities between Foray’s technology and mission and the advent of lab-produced meat and seafood. Although the science is not exactly the same, both have the same goal of replacing the products and resources humans are accustomed to getting from nature with a lab-produced option that is less harmful to natural environments, Beckwith said. While lab-grown meat is still a little further along in its journey, Beckwith is optimistic about Foray’s future.
“As the human population grows, and our demands on natural resources increase, it’s really important for us to be as efficient with those natural resources as possible so that we can preserve them over the long term,” Beckwith said. “This tool really allows us to go beyond the natural constraints that exist in the wider world and get more from less so that we can reduce our footprint on these natural resources, but still have access to the goods that we need to survive as a society.”