{"id":16646,"date":"2024-02-09T17:38:58","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T22:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sosv.com\/?p=16646"},"modified":"2024-02-12T16:50:14","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T21:50:14","slug":"the-ai-that-powers-plant-based-food-darling-notco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sosv.com\/the-ai-that-powers-plant-based-food-darling-notco\/","title":{"rendered":"NotCo’s plant-based foods are on store shelves, but its AI engine “Giuseppe” is the real business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Matias Muchnik and Karim Pichara founded NotCo to modernize R&D in the food industry. While it might look like a plant-based food company, NotCo is in the data and AI business\u2014and aims to disrupt R&D in many industries that use animal and plant ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was March 2015 and Matias Muchnik was bracing for rejection. The vegan mayonnaise entrepreneur and former banking intern entered the office of Karim Pichara, Professor of Computer Science at UC- Chile and an AI researcher at Harvard. Matias needed a co-founder with AI expertise to launch a firm that he hoped could revolutionize plant-based food R&D. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI thought there was zero chance of convincing Karim to jump on board this thing,\u201d says Matias, who\u2019d never met Karim before. Matias only knew him by reputation; seven friends had studied AI under Karim. <\/p>\n\n\n
Matias pitched Karim on developing an AI that could propose plant-based formulas that would produce meat and dairy substitutes tasty enough to supplant (no pun intended) the animal-based versions\u2014and thereby reduce their carbon and overall environmental footprints. Matias had a great pitch, but he was also a 20-something with no scientific background. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
To Matias\u2019 shock, Karim was impressed. He joined Matias\u2019 fledgling NotCo as a co-founder and CTO. NotCo went on to raise $443 million and reach a reported $1.5 billion valuation, with backing from SOSV, Bezos Expeditions, Tiger Global, and Kaszek Ventures, among others. Just as impressively, Matias and Karim launched animal-based plant and dairy products like NotMilk, NotBurgers, and NotChicken and landed on the shelves of Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Amazon and on the menus at Shake Shack, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, and Burger King. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what did any of that have to do with AI? Far more than those consumer launches might suggest. NotCo developed those products using a proprietary AI that is transforming the speed, cost, and precision of developing plant-based foods. They call the AI \u201cGiuseppe,\u201d and it\u2019s the foundation for their critical partnerships with leading food companies. Products like NotMilk, NotBurgers, and NotChicken are not <\/em>the end game for NotCo. \u201cWe built a Trojan horse, and we’re just starting to release the soldiers,\u201d says Matias. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The middle of three brothers and the son of a banker, Matias was raised on Bloomberg TV and dinner table conversations about finance. The family rebel growing up, he played rugby instead of soccer like his siblings. Rugby turned Matias into a foodie and health nut. He wanted a diet that would improve his performance on the pitch, but nutrition experts never seemed to agree on which foods were \u201chealthy.\u201d Vegan products were particularly confusing. They were the holy grail one day and processed junk food the next. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhenever an industry is generating that much confusion, it\u2019s because the industry is broken and there are conflicts of interest,\u201d says Matias, who chose to eat a plant-forward, flexitarian diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matias earned his bachelor\u2019s degree in economics at the University of Chile and landed an internship in banking. Entrepreneurs seemed to be the happiest of his banking clients. That observation, combined with his passion for food, led Matias to launch a vegan mayo startup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matias\u2019s venture, Eggless Company, produced, packed, labeled, and shipped vegan mayo from a friend\u2019s garage. It was the right product, explains Matias, because Chileans put mayo on just about everything. Eggless Mayo became the top-selling alt-mayo in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cIt’s literally two people in lab coats doing trial and error.\u201d<\/p>\nMatias Muchnik, CEO, NotCo<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Matias exited Eggless Company in 2015 and joined an entrepreneurship bootcamp at the University of California-Berkely to figure out his next move in the food world. Matias knew that plant-based products had to capture mass market omnivores to make a difference for the environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While plant-based meat and dairy were getting tastier, the glacial pace of food R&D made innovation too slow and prices too high. Food R&D was \u201carchaic,\u201d says Matias. \u201cIt’s literally two people in lab coats doing trial and error.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\nKarim Pichara and Matias Muchnik, co-founders, NotCo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
At Berkeley, Matias learned that pharmaceutical R&D relied on AI to discover new medicines and formulations. What if food companies could do the same? To find out, Matias needed an AI expert, which is how he found himself in Karim\u2019s office in 2015. At the time, Karim was applying AI to astronomy, but he quickly decided that changing the food system would be more meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He and Matias began developing NotCo\u2019s AI, which they dubbed \u201cGiuseppe\u201d in June 2015. They soon discovered that Giuseppe was limited by a lack of data on the plant molecules that govern our experience of food, from smell and taste to texture and appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, Matias got an introduction to Pablo Zamora, a Chilean biotechnology professor at University of California-Davis who specialized in plant physiology. He referred Matias to Rodrigo Contreras Arredondo, a professor at the University of Santiago with similar credentials. Rodrigo made significant upgrades to Giuseppe. Both eventually joined NotCo\u2014Pablo as a co-founder and Rodrigo as manager of research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Giuseppe working better and NotCo ready to test product-market fit, the team pitched The Hershey Company on developing plant-based milk chocolate. They flew to Hershey headquarters in Pennsylvania to present NotChocolate, their first product. Hershey loved it \u2014 so much so that they asked NotCo to sign an exclusive partnership. Matias and Karim declined, fearing that an exclusive deal would cap NotCo\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
“IndieBio is the NASA of food”<\/p>\nMatias Muchnik, CEO, NotCo<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Throughout 2016, Matias and his PhD co-founders made, packaged, labeled, and delivered their first commercial product, NotMayo, for Chilean supermarkets. Meanwhile, Matias kept an eye on food tech news, which is how he stumbled upon IndieBio, venture firm SOSV\u2019s biotech startup program. IndieBio had invested in two of the biggest names in animal-free foods: UPSIDE Foods (formerly known as Memphis Meats) and The EVERY Company (fka Clara Foods). \u201cI thought, holy shit,\u201d says Matias, \u201cIndieBio is the NASA of food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NotCo team sent over food samples and joined several calls with IndieBio\u2019s crew to review their science and technology. NotCo was accepted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matias represented NotCo full-time in San Francisco, while Karim traveled back and forth from Santiago. They mostly remember pitching investors\u2014again and again and again\u2014as they refined NotCo\u2019s story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That work paid off. Halfway through the program, IndieBio scheduled a trip to meet investors in Argentina. After pitching Hern\u00e1n Kazah, a co-founder of MercadoLibre (Latin America\u2019s largest tech company), NotCo raised a $3 million seed round led by his venture firm, Kaszek. NotCo graduated IndieBio in September 2017 with a powerful story and the funding to start work on new products.<\/p>\n\n\n\nNotCo promotional image. Photo credit: NotCo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Matias and Karim decided to expand NotCo in Latin America first. That came with a challenging advantage. US and European vegans had learned to tolerate meh-tasting substitutes for meat and dairy. In Latin America, there was almost no vegan culture. NotCo would only grow if it outcompeted animal foods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Giuseppe made that possible. Giuseppe analyzes food at a molecular level to come up with plant-based recipes that replicate the flavor, texture, and nutritional profile, shortening the R&D process from years to months. Giuseppe draws on a proprietary database of more than 300,000 edible plants, which means it sometimes produces surprising formulations\u2014like using pineapple and cabbage juices to make NotMilk taste like milk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matias and Karim believe that Giuseppe will become the R&D intelligence inside major food brands. That\u2019s Giuseppe\u2019s role in the Kraft Heinz Not Company joint venture created to come up with plant-based versions of Kraft\u2019s classic products. Giuseppe can also help food scientists rapidly reformulate existing products if, for instance, supply chain issues, disease, or climate change lead to ingredient shortages. Today, Giuseppe\u2019s outputs have led to more than twenty-four international patents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Potentially, Giuseppe could disrupt R&D in any industry that relies on complex recipes, including supplements, pet care, and beauty products. That\u2019s why Matias calls NotCo a Trojan horse\u2014it\u2019s a data company disguised as a food company. And it\u2019s now behind the ramparts, positioned to replace animal ingredients in numerous industries. That\u2019s welcome news for our warming planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
By Richard Ellis Photos by NotCo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While it might look like a plant-based food company, NotCo is in the data and AI business\u2014and aims to disrupt R&D in many industries that use animal and plant ingredients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":16709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"tx_company":[1107],"tx_category":[1085,1082],"tx_trend":[2017],"tx_program":[1048],"posts_type":[22],"class_list":["post-16646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tx_company-notco","tx_category-alt-protein","tx_category-future-food","tx_trend-climate-tech-100","tx_program-indiebio","posts_type-founder-stories"],"acf":{"founder_names":"Karim Pichara and Matias Muchnik","founder_positions":"Co-founders, NotCo","founder_companies":"NotCo","founder_spotlight_image":16711,"publisher":"","author":"","article_url":"","portal_id":""},"yoast_head":"\n
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