Mick Liubinskas: Hello everybody, it's Mick Liubinskas, here from Climate Salad. I'm very excited to be chatting to Lucie from newera.bio. Hey Lucie, how are you going?

Lucie Semenec: Good, thanks. How are you, Mick?

Mick Liubinskas: I'm really, really good. It's been a huge year and a big week. We've actually got tons of things still going on by the end of the year, but it's been really great to work with you and see the company flourish and keep growing. Can you give us a bit of an intro to yourself and the company?

Lucie Semenec: Absolutely, yeah, thanks. So, I'm Lucie Semenec. I'm the co-founder and CEO of newera.bio, and my co-founder, Xin Xu, and I started the company a year ago as part of the UNSW Founders 10X Accelerator. And essentially, we had worked together for several years in the lab at Macquarie University, studying how microbes can degrade waste. And we were quite excited when we saw beautiful colors growing on our plates. And that really distracted us and took us into a whole investigation of where dyes and pigments are used a lot, and we found that textiles are using dyes and pigments by far the most. And we also realized the dirty secret that our clothes are dyed with fossil fuel dyes, which is not on our clothing labels, surprisingly.

Lucie Semenec: So, this really upset us and we wanted to change this because we see that microbes can produce colors very naturally, very sustainably. And we basically started into the Accelerator with this idea of using microbes for producing colors that can go into textiles.

Lucie Semenec: But what we quickly realized with a lot of customer discovery and market research in the initial phases was when we talked to textile mills around the world, like in India and Bangladesh and China, we found that they actually don't like using natural dyes, and that's microbial-based or even plant-based. And the reason was that they don't work very well. So, the mills end up spending a lot of energy, high dyeing temperatures, long dyeing times, and they have to use metal mordants to get the natural dyes to stick to the fabrics.

Lucie Semenec: We realized that we can't just produce something that people don't want, right? So, that's where we came up with our tech to actually improve the ability of natural dyes to bind to textiles. And so that's where newera.bio really incepted its idea, and it's been a really long journey since then. And we've got a lot of exciting things going on.

Mick Liubinskas: Interestingly, I've actually got a Macquarie University jumper here.

Lucie Semenec: Oh, cool.

Mick Liubinskas: I'm doing my Masters of Sustainable Development at Macquarie. It's apparel and it's from Macquarie, so it's a good connection. I was going to go read the label, but I'm assuming it's not currently addressing the problem, but...

Lucie Semenec: Definitely not black. Yeah. That's a hard color to get.

Mick Liubinskas: It is. I think it's actually navy, but really dark. So, I think still... I know blue jeans are not great. People, I think, want to do the right thing by the environment. A lot of people do, at least. But textiles is one of those things which is actually, it's very difficult to control and understand. It's kind of like you go to the shop and buy these things.

Mick Liubinskas: And I know one of the Climate Salad members, Good On You, does a good job of helping understand what your clothing choices can do for sustainability. But can you tell us a bit about, for those who don't know, in terms of what's the impact of textiles on the world? It's not the immediate thing that comes to mind in terms of solar panels or EVs or maybe hydrogen, but I think textiles actually plays a really, really key role in sustainability. Can you maybe help educate those who are still learning about this space?

Lucie Semenec: Absolutely. Yeah. So, I'll talk about textile dyes specifically because that's our target. So, textile dyes, we've got billions of kilograms produced every year. Textile mill that does medium to large-scale production can use tons of dye on a daily basis. And these dyes, in order to produce them, they use toxic materials such as aniline and benzene and formaldehyde and you name it, really nasty chemicals that expose the workers to harmful substances. And there are explosive accidents that happen from time to time as well, which is really terrible.

Lucie Semenec: And not only that is a dirty process, the production of the dyes, but then the disposal of them is an issue as well. So, they don't biodegrade very easily, if not at all. Most of them don't. And when they do break down, they release toxic substances into the environment. A lot of textile mills around the world and developing countries, they don't have a mandate to dispose of their wastewater in ethical ways, so they can really just dump it into rivers and streams.

Lucie Semenec: This can very negatively impact the health of nearby communities. And not to mention all the landfill waste that we see with our fast fashion culture and all those dyes are going to leach into our water streams as well. And that generates 20% of the world's water pollution, which is quite a huge amount.

Mick Liubinskas: It is a really big one. I know it speaks to a lot of the climate challenges which are kind of hidden away from us. I want to go back to the Macquarie University side. Tell us about in terms of developing that, and I really want to know about the spin-out. I know Hygiene Renewables is also out of Macquarie Uni. I think Australia's got a tremendous opportunity to bring some of these amazing research and IP out of universities and spin them into great companies. MJ Thermal's another example, v2foods at a CSIRO. Can you tell us about that experience of being in there, spitting out, and now on the other side as an entrepreneur?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, so it's a little bit different than a spin-out traditionally. So, we actually developed our core tech when we were in the Accelerator and I was already fully into the company, and so our tech was not in the lab, it was just an idea on a paper. So, have a lot of lab work going on in UNSW now.

Mick Liubinskas: Okay. Yeah, great. And that's a really fantastic program, David and the team there. It's been really impressive what they've done in terms of the broad programs, but really specifically in climate and bio. Tell us about that. What was that like going through that program and how did that help in terms the progress?

Lucie Semenec: That program really helped us a lot. So, we got our Main Sequence Ventures funding from that program and it developed all the skills that we needed to get out of the lab and into the real world of trying to sell actual product. And we really are both from an academic background, so we had a lot of bad habits to break in terms of being over-perfectionist and on academic timelines.

Lucie Semenec: When you're in a company, you realize you have to be really fast every single week and talk to customers a lot more than you would ever imagine. So, being in a lab, you're quite used to just sitting in your own little space. And going through the whole day, you can comfortably just do your own work all day. But when you need to get research done and understand what people want, what are you trying to make for them, that's where the UNSW Founders team really helped us.

Lucie Semenec: They helped us with everything from what do you ask customers? How do you know what they want? How do you analyze what they're telling you? How do you ask the right questions? And understanding this whole go-to-market strategy, value proposition, product market fit, all these terms we never understood before starting and now it's really ingrained in us, every single day we think about it.

Lucie Semenec: We had great mentors in that. We had Jason Whitfield and Madison McCoy, who were a huge confidence boost and actually are helping us every month, quarterly, with connections into investors and companies that are relevant for us. So, it's about connecting with everybody and also just learning from all their experience as well.

Mick Liubinskas: It's a really interesting combination, I think, obviously with the UNSW and Main Sequence as a big VC. And for those that don't know Main Sequence, can you give us a quick intro to what they are and what they do and why they exist?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, sure. So, they're one of the largest investors in Australia in the APAC region, and they have a wide range of companies in their portfolio that they invest in. And we were really interested in them particularly because of some of the companies that they have in their portfolio have a really strong fashion focus. So, there's companies like Samsara Eco and ULUU and even Zafco, more recently, that are focused on different aspects of the fashion supply chain.

Lucie Semenec: And we knew that if we partnered with them, we would have a huge network of support just by being connected with those companies. So yeah, Main Sequence was a very great investor to have for the start. And they don't just help by giving you money, and they always drill that down into you and you really realize it's true because they provide so much more than just funding. They're a huge support and are continuously helping connect us with brands and even other investors and helping us understand the market better and really polish up our decks and everything. So, they're a huge support.

Mick Liubinskas: And are you enjoying this new world of being both the research and science side, building a product, but also this entrepreneurial business, capital raising customer side? That mix, it's such an important combo for climate technology. How are you feeling now that you've spent enough time on both sides? Do you like the mix or are you thinking that this entrepreneurial side is where you want to be in the next 10 years or you like a bit more of a balance back on terms of the science and product side?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, it's a great question, Mick. Really, when you're in this space, you realize you have these three major focus areas. You've got the product, which is all the R&D, you've got the investor and the relationships there, and then as you said, the customers. I feel like my scientific roots really enjoy the product development side. It's really exciting when we have our chemists and our scientists in the lab coming up with new ways to do things and they share the results on WhatsApp and are super excited. We get excited with them, and we love our R&D meetings. We can easily go over time and we don't even mind.

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, it's definitely still very, very important aspect for me and I enjoy it a lot. But I equally really enjoy the customer side as well because we really see the ability now to take that research that we're so excited about and make it into something that we can use on a daily basis, which is so exciting. It takes it to a whole new level.

Lucie Semenec: And it's equally exciting to talk to brands and understand how passionate they are about implementing... Especially the smaller brands. They're really wanting to innovate and break the norms and have these new products in the market. So, we love to talk to brands. We love talking to textile mills, actually. They're so warm and friendly and just really amazing to work with. It's amazing to see how much work is done to get our clothes on our backs every day. It's just incredible.

Lucie Semenec: And then on the investor side, that's always the stressful part for us. It's just trying to keep the boat afloat, right?

Mick Liubinskas: Yep.

Lucie Semenec: So, that's the most challenging side as well, I would say. But it's also very good when you talk to some really great, passionate investors out there.

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, fantastic. It's great. I think it is, as I mentioned, I think it's important to get really talented people to be able to straddle between the two worlds of science and entrepreneurship. That's a big part of the climate tech opportunity. And so since the UNSW program and Main Sequence, you've been in the Climate Salad's Global Growth Program, supported by the New South Wales Government's Departments of DQ, as they say. Can you tell us a bit about how that program's gone and how you developed and some of the big milestones?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, absolutely. So, we had an incredible mentor assigned to us, [inaudible] . He has been really helpful in understanding how we market ourselves to the customers. So yeah, he's really been pushing us to do newsletters, which again is from our academic side. It's not something we're used to doing all the time. So, he's been really great in pushing those habits in us. And also just helping us understand how to communicate with investors and customers and translate our academic and more research findings into the real world.

Lucie Semenec: And the Global Growth Program has been amazing. All the workshops that we have to understand the markets in the US, it's really eye-opening for us to learn about how they view the Australian market and what are the challenges for us to get into the US, learning about basic things, like if you want US investors, you may need to flip up and have your holding company there. All these insights that we learned have been really valuable to us. And you have the European-specific and Asian-specific seminars that have been really instrumental for making our decisions as well.

Lucie Semenec: The textile dying market is largely in Asia, so we're really aware that we need to eventually go into that area, at least probably for the manufacturing side. And our ultimate buyers are in that area. But in the same way we have the influencers of our customers, the brands are in Europe and in the US. So, really this program for us was important to hear all the different areas of the world on how we can interact with them and do business with them. And of course, we met at the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit, so that was great to see friendly, familiar faces there as well.

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, tell us a bit about that.

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, so that was a really great experience. Basically, we were also at the same time as being part of the Global Growth Program, we're part of the Hello Tomorrow New Materials and Circularity Program. And we had some pitching that we did there. And really, being in that summit, you realize that these other innovators have the same challenges as you.

Lucie Semenec: And actually, we met within that program, another fellow innovator that is working on microbial dyes and we see, "Oh, in the future, you never know, we may be able to collaborate somehow because we're approaching it differently." But what was really great about that event as well was we were able to meet with these really large brands, these retail brands, luxury brands, and even cosmetics brands that gave us insight into what are their real requirements for the products, and a bit of a reality check, realizing how much you really need to prove out in order for them to be able to use your product. So, it was great to connect with them and have them as people that now I know in person and can reach out to regularly with updates. So, it's really awesome.

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, amazing. The Hello Tomorrow Conference is based in Paris. It was in, I think, March 26th this year or something around then. And there was a number of events around it, but are really focused on deep tech, not exclusively climate, but a fair bit of bios and health. It speaks to, I think, both the scale of other markets, such as Europe, that it was so big, thousands of people who were there purely for deep tech. Whereas Australia, I think has lost a little bit of our deep tech advanced manufacturing muscle in some areas. And I think we're trying to get some of that back.

Mick Liubinskas: Again, one of the purposes of Hello Tomorrow, but also of Climate Salad's Global Growth Program, it was the fact that we have these incredible companies, like what Lucie is building, but to be able to get enough customers for them. And as you said, you've got maybe the brands in Europe, maybe also big brands and companies in the US, but manufacturing actually in Asia, who makes that decision.

Mick Liubinskas: Patagonia has come out very strongly and said, "We're going to be 100% sustainable." But they don't make all the stuff in the US or in Australia... So, it's a complex space. Can you tell us a bit about that dynamic? I think you've touched on a little bit in terms of how are you thinking about global expansion, what's the path over the next few years in terms of hearing all about the different markets and seeing the response from Europe and working in the global growth program with the team and the other companies? What's your sense on the Global Growth path for you?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, there's been a lot of brainstorming around it. We really understood from an early time point, that we had the two kind of customers we can reach out to: the brands and the mills. And it really depends who we reach out to, where we go in the world. But there are certain brands that are a little bit more vertically-integrated and they have more of their manufacturing in their own hands.

Lucie Semenec: So, brands like Lululemon will be more vertically-integrated, and they can perhaps mandate the use certain raw materials in their products and have more control on that. But from our approach, we're reaching out to anyone and everyone who's interested. And that means we will talk to brands in Europe and US and we'll talk to all the mills that we can find that will let us visit in Asia.

Lucie Semenec: And what we found is that we can actually generate interest in customers from both sides. So, when we talked to the mills, they let us know that, "If you have a positive result in a pilot test, we can then promote you to the brands that we work with." And similarly with the brands, they told us, "If you get some good results in a mill, then it'll make it easier for me to then tell my mill to also adopt the technology."

Lucie Semenec: Based off of that, we are quite agnostic. We're going everywhere in the world to see where we'll get the most pull. And we're finding that there's some mills, like most recently our trip to China, a mill that is very innovative and actually does their own R&D is interested to try out our dyes and they are able to do a bit of research with us on that. Yeah, it's not just brands that can innovate. But on the most part, it's the brands that will be hearing more about the sustainable aspect and the textile mills more about the costs.

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, I guess cost is obviously also driven by regulation. Are you aware of any... I know there's a lot more reporting regulation, a lot more pressure around some areas, certainly energy, but also some transport components. Is there legislation like the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in Europe and Inflation Reduction Act in the US? Are there any key regulation points which are actually starting to impact textiles?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, I would say the most recent one, the digital Product Passport, it's improving the transparency in the supply chain. So, brands will need to really be transparent about where their materials are produced and what they're comprised of, and the sustainability of all the materials.

Lucie Semenec: So, this is something that we first saw in food, no one really cared about organic, nobody knew, but then when it came out that a lot of our foods have pesticides and it's harmful to the environment and certain practices are harmful, people cared a lot. And it's starting to happen with cosmetics, but I think textiles is around the corner with this new Product Passport legislation out.

Lucie Semenec: And then also this anti-greenwashing directive in Europe that has come through as well is not allowing for companies to just say, "Sustainable and eco-friendly," unless they prove out and really ensure that it's more eco-friendly than anything else out there, right?

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah.

Lucie Semenec: So, these are two that I think are going to drive a lot of change. Yeah,

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah. Really interesting.

Lucie Semenec: And we need that change because otherwise if it ain't broke, don't fix it, in a way. Textile mills will just be like, "Well, our products are working so fantastically, they're so cheap. Why do we want to really change it up?"

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, I'm sure you're like me when you see the ads for things like, "$10 jeans, how good a deal is that?" I'm like...

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, yeah. It's scary.

Mick Liubinskas: It might feel like a good deal, but it's actually not a good deal. There's no way you can make a pair of blue jeans without environmental costs for that cheap and send them around. I know they're making millions of them, but it's really a reality, I think. And the other thing is obviously reuse, right? The fast fashion is just... it's really costing us. So, I feel like that could grind to a halt and really change. And I know I was the same. I had a pair of blue jeans and I would get a hole in them and I'd throw them out and get a new one. And now it's like-

Lucie Semenec: Hey, what do you mean? The hole is trendy now.

Mick Liubinskas: Exactly. Exactly.

Lucie Semenec: [inaudible] .

Mick Liubinskas: People are cutting holes in them. Exactly. Exactly. I'm clearly not trendy, Lucie. That has clearly been established. We know that absolutely. So yeah, food has this amazing thing about it, which is that it's sustenance with food. I know, and again, all over the world is still... doesn't have my privilege around food, but there is also tastes and flavors and local seasonality, and there's health around food. Fashion is... Sorry, apparel is the same thing, which it has a utility, but it also has a... there's a fashion component, there's a self-esteem component. It's interesting that it has actually a more complicated dynamic.

Lucie Semenec: Absolutely, yeah. And if you have all these microfibers generated from pilling your clothes, pilling all those... Or with dyes attached to them, you can breathe that in. Who knows what happens? Nobody knows. But I think the key thing is we know that these dyes are very similar in structure to endocrine disruptors and toxic chemicals. So, it's something that we don't really know too much about, but we do know that there's alternatives out there and there's safer solutions. So, why don't we use those or make them work better?

Mick Liubinskas: I think that's a really powerful point. And I feel a lot of people who are either flat out climate denialists or climate apotheists are kind of like, "Oh, Mick, you don't want us to wear any new clothes and wear just one pair of jeans our whole life." You're like, "No, I just want you to dye the jeans with a better product." Right?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah. Something that when it degrades in the environment, it won't hurt it. It'll just blend right in. Yeah.

Mick Liubinskas: And is that the goal that basically the end consumer should know no different, right? It's like if the full environmental costs are factored in, it's a replacement like-for-like, right? It's like the consumer's not going, "Well, it's blue jeans, but they're really itchy or they don't fit anymore." It's a like-for-like, right?

Lucie Semenec: No. Yeah, we want it to even be better, if possible. Right?

Mick Liubinskas: Better. That's awesome.

Lucie Semenec: Yeah. Can you have a bit of antimicrobial effect in there, so you don't even have to use as much deodorant? I don't know.

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah. Oh wow, that's really interesting.

Lucie Semenec: But of course, our base case is just make it as good. Let's just make it as good.

Mick Liubinskas: Let's start there.

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, you see there's so much opportunity for improvements and new function, at least.

Mick Liubinskas: So, I'm seeing a Back To The Future too where you press a button and it actually dries off your clothes if they get wet. And as a dad of teenagers, having clothes that actually have built-in deodorant sounds like a really good idea to me.

Lucie Semenec: Good, right?

Mick Liubinskas: I'll approve buying some of those. So, it sounds like you've had an incredible 2024. Tell me about 2025. What's coming up, what's the next big step?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah. We basically are now wanting to get to a larger proof of concept. So, we've got our dyes working in the lab, we have this great lab dyeing machine, and we're able to do a lot of iterations and understand how they work on that scale.

Lucie Semenec: But after visiting all the textile mills and seeing things done in tons scale, you realize those results might not be as translatable when you put it into those large dyeing machines that can hold like a hundred kilos. So, we want to scale to the next level, which requires us to get into the pilot's testing phase.

Lucie Semenec: Ideally, we want to have our own facility here in Australia that can do a very medium scale, just for pilot testing, and allow us to do rapid iteration of our prototyping and get into some capsule collections and really prove it out, prove out the commercial utility of the dyes. That's what's coming and it's super exciting. And we have a lot of collaborators building and a lot of customers that we're talking to, potential customers. Of course, we don't have any revenue at the moment. But we see the interest there to at least test it on a more industrial relevant scale. That's what we're really looking forward to.

Mick Liubinskas: Fantastic. Okay. That's really, really interesting. And capital-wise, I know you've got some really good support from UNSW Main Sequence and others. I know it's been a little bit of a challenging time in terms of capital. Do you feel like there's going to be enough customers there? Is there some non-deleted government support? How are you going to support all of that growth?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, it's really just whatever we can get. We've applied to a few grants for different aspects of the work, and we hope to get some of that. Fingers crossed, double crossed. And then we are in the middle of our seed raise, so we are raising more venture capital and things are looking okay, so I don't want to say too much more than that, but yeah, it's definitely... We need to get to this next level, so we're going to do a blend of non-dilutive and VC.

Mick Liubinskas: I was chatting to some entrepreneurs, climate tech entrepreneurs last night, and we were talking about this really interesting thought around everyone who's working in this space wants deployment as fast as possible, not just because to grow their own business, but because of the environmental benefits of actually rolling this out.

Mick Liubinskas: The reality is no matter how much money you got, for you, moving the entire textiles and apparel market is challenging. You could have the best salespeople in the world and a hundred people selling it. There's a lot to change. It takes time. Between now and 2030, can you give us a sense of how you think that this, your particular industry, is going to develop? Is it that 2025 is going to be a massive year with lots of change and everyone's going to be deploying it? Or is it more likely to be... Is it going to take years because we're talking about huge change in machines and even developing things? What's a timescale towards scaling this out and deploying it that's useful to think about?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, that's a great question. We don't have our product needing new equipment, so we have an advantage there of being a drop-in solution. We are just producing the dye in the same format as fossil fuel dye, just powder or liquid format. We have ease of adoption there. But of course, you talk to the textile mills and they're like, "Oh, I've been using the same dye supplier for 10 years. I'm comfortable with them. We have a relationship." So, trying and break into that.

Lucie Semenec: And I guess that's where partnerships are the key game changer there is to form partnerships with the right people. So, looking into not necessarily dye producers, but maybe some dye producers, and seeing if they're interested in the technology and partnering together. And then also auxiliary chemical producers, ones that don't produce dyes, but produce all the other additives that go into textile dyeing, and they have the networks and connections built. So, working with them.

Lucie Semenec: I think it's really important that we just collaborate with as many people as we can, that are strategic for getting this out into the market as soon as possible. That's the end goal is, "Let's do this fast, let's get fossil fuel dyes out of here." So, we're really collaborative and open to working with people to do that.

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, that's a really good point around, I guess, are you disrupting something or is it actually kind of a fairly reasonable, just replacement? We see that certainly in energy, obviously, in that you're displacing trillions of dollars worth of fossil fuel industries, and the people who own those businesses and work there aren't going to be happy about that. You've got to bring them along the journey. So, that sort of partnerships/collaboration must be really, really, really key. Because as you said, they've got an existing solution that's a real business. They're working for them. Until the regulation changes massively or consumers absolutely demand it, it ain't broke, so don't fix it, but...

Lucie Semenec: That's right. Yeah.

Mick Liubinskas: We know it is not good enough and we've got to make that change. So, it's a bit more delicate than just basically, "Here's a better product." Right?

Lucie Semenec: Absolutely. And we already, just from initial conversations, we do see there is interest from those fossil fuel dye companies to have something as an alternative. They just know that it's going to take time, but once it's partnered with them, things can accelerate pretty quickly. So, I think the key thing to keep in mind is, "How do we just get this out into the world as fast as possible?"

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, exactly. Interesting. I guess on that a little bit as well, the Global Growth Program was supported by the New South Wales Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water with a view that it's not just about helping newera.bio, it's also actually about creating an ecosystem and that cohort support. Can you talk about how has that been for you? How have you utilized that cohort and that ecosystem of support?

Lucie Semenec: Absolutely. Yeah. So, there's a lot of portfolio companies in that cohort that we're very happy to connect with. We have Tina Funder from Alt.Leather, there's Levers, Tom Collier. We've got Louise Brown from Hi Jean. And we're just really happy to connect with them because they're doing sort of more of this biotech space stuff that we are into, and we can exchange our learnings with one another and our connections as well.

Lucie Semenec: And Tina even has tested our dyes in her leather products, so that was super exciting. And I think, yeah, we're looking to see if we can get more colors on their alternative leather. Yeah, I think just being able to have that close connection to companies that are doing similar things is really great. But then there's other team members in the cohort that we meet during our gatherings that we learn from as well. Yeah, it's been quite cool.

Mick Liubinskas: And I want to make sure I give a shout-out to Olivia who runs the program with Audrey looking after the Victorian companies.

Lucie Semenec: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, Olivia has been amazing. She's helped us with a lot of our media outreach and getting articles out there. Yeah, definitely, Olivia has been incredible and Audrey as well.

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah, big shout-out to the team there. So, before we go, just really quickly touching on team. Can you tell us a bit about how many people in your team, what do they do? What are the type of roles? Not everybody has to be an entrepreneur and CEO. There's a lot of different roles in climate. Can you talk about the kind of jobs that exist that you've provided so far?

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, sure. We've got an awesome team, really diverse. So, we've got Xin, the co-founder and CSO, chief scientific officer, and she is an incredible scientist, working on the Yeast 2.0 project before this, building the world's first eukaryotic genome, synthetic eukaryotic genome. And she just has so much passion for it. She was in the company while still doing her postdoc, and really has been working two full-time jobs, I have to say. Yeah, she has this great connection with the Asian market. She's got a lot of network with academics and people in the manufacturing industry in China, so it's really amazing to have her on the team.

Lucie Semenec: And we've got Rebecca Zhang, she is our commercial officer, and she has an MBA. She's worked at the Boston Consulting Group. She's got a wealth of business and commercialization experience, and really rounds us out.

Lucie Semenec: And then we've got Jimmy and Osman, our metabolic engineer. Osman and Jimmy are organic chemists, and they really make it all happen. They get the dyes extracted, they purify, and they put it onto textiles, allow it to be optimized for textile dyeing, which microbial pigments are not very good at it. And that takes a lot of innovative power. So yeah, really kudos to them. They're doing amazing.

Mick Liubinskas: Amazing. And for someone who might be thinking that they've got a business or an idea that solves a big climate problem and they're thinking that... they may be wondering whether that's something they should commit a big part of their life to, any advice you have for entrepreneurs who are growing in climate tech businesses, like of lessons learned for you or things you found important, valuable?

Lucie Semenec: I would say if you can't imagine doing anything else that would make you really happy, just do it. Yeah. No matter how hard it is, it'll be worth it. Yeah.

Mick Liubinskas: Awesome. Yeah, that's a really, really great steer. As we started three and a half years ago with only 12 companies in Climate Salad, and we've just gone past 700. And Lucie, newera.bio, you are one of those amazing companies, and it's been really great working with you. How can people find out about more about your business?

Lucie Semenec: You can visit our website.

Mick Liubinskas: What's the URL?

Lucie Semenec: Www.newera.bio.

Mick Liubinskas: .bio. Awesome.

Lucie Semenec: Yeah, and we're on LinkedIn and yeah...

Mick Liubinskas: Yeah. Reach out.

Lucie Semenec: Reach out. Yeah.

Mick Liubinskas: Lucie, thank you so much for sharing. Really amazing to see how far it's coming in the year we've been working with you. Great to be a part of the program, and thanks for being a big contributor to the community and ecosystem as well. Looking forward to a massive next year, and please just keep going.

Lucie Semenec: Thanks so much, Mick, you're awesome. Thanks so much for all your insights. We've learned so much from you.

Mick Liubinskas: Thank you.