Karsten Temme, CEO of Pivot Bio, discusses the company's $430 million Series D and its microbial nitrogen products designed to replace volatile synthetic fertilizers. Pivot Bio shifted to direct relationships with farmers in 2018 and now uses living-catalyst microbes as a stable alternative to ammonia-based fertilizers. The company also launched Connect Snacks, a popcorn brand meant to connect growers and consumers.
Chapters
Hi everyone, I am Merryn Grams here in charge of partnership for World AgriTech Summit. On the ramp-up to the event, we're bringing you bite-sized interviews with incredible people in the industry, and today I am joined by Karsten Temme, CEO at Pivot Bio. Karsten, nice to see you.
Well, it's great to have a chance to chat for a few minutes and looking forward to the event Soon.
Yeah, we'll be really, we'll be live in San Francisco in March, and that's really exciting. So we just kind of wanted to let them know a little bit more about you, about PivotBio. So the company was founded in 2011. You recently raised a $430 million Series D. So we kind of want to know what were the most pivotal moments for the company and also what were the biggest hurdles to overcome?
One of the things that was a big step for us was not just developing our first product, but being able to bring it into the marketplace and form direct connections with growers, really transformed to being a customer-centric company that is, yeah, it is all about scaling our innovation in the marketplace. And so that year in the 2018, 2019 timeframe is when we took a big step as a company and really made a commitment to the growers we serve that we're going to be here working with them, hopefully for decades to come.
Yeah, it's been really— it's been fascinating to be following you, to be honest. So what has been your approach to collaboration and partnerships?
I think there's always room to be able to work together towards an ideal, that ideal that we want to serve growers better and raise the bar on what it means to supply nitrogen to fuel all of agriculture. And so we've had collaborations when it comes to the earliest stages of generating knowledge or refining and bringing our products into the marketplace and even partnering with other companies to be able to better serve growers. So all different stages of how we work with others in the industry, and hopefully the result is just another set of tools that improves what every grower can do in producing that harvest each year.
So it's really good to have that kind of like grower-centric approach, but then like working differently with different partners. The prices for synthetic fertilizers has soared over the past year. Do you think this trend is going to continue? And do you think there's any opportunities there?
One of the biggest challenges I think is just the volatility that's involved in commodity supply and pricing. And hopefully the step change that we bring to the marketplace is to start eliminating that volatility. So the products we deliver today have a very consistent performance, and they have a very consistent pricing. And in a lot of respects, that means what we hope the industry evolves to is something that's less dependent on maybe natural gas prices or the supply chain shocks that hamper our ability to move ammonia-derived products around the world. And instead, we can really leverage a true cost advantage and a more stable pricing when we're simply shipping a living catalyst, the microbe that produces nitrogen in the roots of the plant.
Yeah, no, it's again, I'm going to use that word again, but fascinating. And, you know, you use words like consistency, and I think that's what everyone is kind of looking for at the moment as well. On another note, you've launched your own food brand called Connect with unpopped Popcorn kernels. You know, I personally can't wait to taste them and just have some in my hands. But why is it important for you to move into the food space?
I think the name says it all. The goal is really to bring growers with all of us as consumers closer together. That connection is something that is so easy to lose sight of as more and more people live away from farms. And ultimately, the choices that every farmer is making to better grow their crops, to have more consistency in getting that nitrogen into the crop, having a better way to be a faithful steward of the land, that has a ripple effect that benefits all of us as consumers and improves the sustainability of our global resources. So let's celebrate that. And that's really all we're trying to focus on in being able to launch that brand, Connect Snacks.
Carsten, thank you so much for your time. I'm really, really looking forward to meeting you in San Francisco, which is now in 4 weeks. So I'll see you there. Thank you again.
Well, thank you. And looking forward to seeing you and everybody else who gets to join us.
