Foray Bioscience is Breaking Down Barriers in Plant-Based Biomanufacturing
Ashley Beckwith, a researcher with a background in biology, materials, and manufacturing, has dedicated her career to developing medical solutions more efficiently. When she realized her expertise could be applied to plants and plant-based materials, an area in dire need of innovation, she decided to shift her focus.
"Life on earth is only as secure as our global plant populations, and currently, our plant populations are in crisis," Beckwith explained. "Nearly 40% of our plant species are threatened by extinction, and forest landscapes untouched by humans have shrunk by 12% in 2022. These plant resources are being squeezed on all fronts."
Beckwith leveraged her knowledge of biomanufacturing, the process of using microorganisms and cell cultures to produce biological molecules and materials on a commercial scale, to launch Foray Bioscience in February 2022. The company utilizes biomanufacturing to grow harvest-free plant-based materials, seeds, and molecules.
Biomanufacturing has been around for about 100 years, but it hasn't had many practical use cases for plants until now. Because each plant species is unique, there wasn't a one-size-fits-all approach to cultivate cells, making biomanufacturing with plant cell cultures laborious. Foray aims to change this through its database approach, providing predictive insights and experimental direction to speed up the research and development process for each plant species.
"At Foray, we are developing advanced tools for plant-less production to ask less of these resources and start to give back more," Beckwith said.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup raised a $3 million seed round led by ReGen Ventures, an Australian firm focused on backing 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 expand its team.
Beckwith mentioned that it took a while to fundraise the round because what the company is trying to do doesn't fit squarely into one category but rather at the intersection of many, from manufacturing to biology to conservation. This "odd ball" feeling is something Beckwith is used to running up against. She said that the reason she launched the company to begin with is that there wasn't a natural home for the research she was doing in plant biomanufacturing.
"I was in this weird cross-disciplinary bubble," Beckwith said. "That was really apparent to me when I got toward the end of my PhD. If this research was going to move forward and progress, I had to carry it forward into the next iteration of itself. Because of the newness of the field, there wasn't really a home for it in the academic setting or manufacturing setting. We had to make our own space."
She described taking the science out of the lab and launching the company as a "long journey." The startup currently works with other companies to help them set up their biomanufacturing by designing their clients' research and development roadmap and helping them develop commercialization strategies.
Beckwith also envisions creating a genetic banking system for plant seeds, especially those that aren't easy to document, and allowing new seeds to be grown from just a few cells. This will aid conservation efforts as well.
There are many parallels between Foray's tech and mission and the rise of lab-grown meat and seafood. While the science isn't exactly the same, Beckwith said, both have the same goal of replacing products and resources that humans are used to getting from nature with a lab-grown option that's less harmful to natural environments. While lab-grown meat is a little further along in the journey, Beckwith is optimistic about Foray's future.
"With the scale of the growing human population and our growing demands on natural resources, it's really important for us to be as efficient with those natural resources as possible so we can keep them around for the long term," Beckwith said. "This tool really allows us to move past 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 we need to survive as a society."
Image Credits: Foray Biosceince
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