Ep 100: Bill Brady, Co-Founder & CEO of Kula Bio
Podcast |
My Climate Journey
Publisher |
Jason Jacobs, Cody Simms, Yin Lu
Media Type |
audio
Podknife tags |
Climate Change, 
Interview, 
Science & Medicine
Categories Via RSS |
Business, 
Science, 
Technology
Publication Date |
Apr 20, 2020
Episode Duration |
00:49:19

In today’s episode, we cover:

  • What is Kula Bio, its mission, and what it has developed
  • The importance of nitrogen as an ingredient in fertilizer and agriculture
  • The drawbacks and consequences of the Haber-Bosch process
  • Kula Bio’s unique fertilizer and how it addresses carbon emissions
  • The microbial process of developing the proprietary fertilizer
  • Profile of customers, to which Kula Bio is catering
  • Kula Bio’s value proposition to farmers
  • Benefits of organic nitrogen-based fertilizer vs. synthetic
  • Origins of Kula Bio’s technology in the Harvard Labs
  • Kula Bio’s commercial traction and milestones
  • The adjacent opportunities and long-term vision of the company
  • Bill’s perspective on scaling and financing Kula Bio
  • Insights and learnings derived from speaking with hundreds of farmers
  • The impact on climate change of Kula Bio’s technology
  • Bill’s reflection on his long-career as an entrepreneur and operator
  • Bill’s view on making impact vs. profits
  • How the economic viability of a climate solution is critical
  • Why impact is an important motivation for entrepreneurs
  • Bill’s retrospective on “Cleantech 1.0” and where it stumbled
  • The role of family offices as a source of long-term financing for clean tech ventures
  • How investor attention now focuses on specific milestones and pragmatic considerations
  • The importance of education and the need to improve STEM as a solution to address climate change
  • Bill’s perspective on nuclear as an important solution that should be scaled
  • Bill’s recommendation on finding purpose-driven opportunities, regardless of your background or stage of life

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Get connected with MCJ: 

*If you liked this episode, please consider giving us a review! You can also reach us via email at info@mcj.vc, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Today's guest is Bill Brady, Co-Founder & CEO of Kula Bio. Kula Bio is a company producing biologically derived nitrogen fertilizer, produced by microbes, that addresses not only agricultural needs, but also serves to sequester carbon into the soil. By rewiring the energy flow from sun to soil, Kula Bio is disrupting synthetic fertilizer to eliminate the division between affordable practices and stewardship of our land, sea, and air. Prior to Kula Bio, Bill was a Co-Founder of Monolith Materials where he remains on the board of directors and, before that, he spent 23 years at Cabot Corporation, the world's largest carbon black company. In that latter role, he held numerous roles in the U.S. and abroad, including president of the $2 billion carbon black business. We have a great discussion in this episode. I found Bill's perspective particularly insightful, as he has a mix of big company and startup cleantech experience, and he has been through the startup ringer (and the cleantech ringer!) several times over. Enjoy the show! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

In today’s episode, we cover:

  • What is Kula Bio, its mission, and what it has developed
  • The importance of nitrogen as an ingredient in fertilizer and agriculture
  • The drawbacks and consequences of the Haber-Bosch process
  • Kula Bio’s unique fertilizer and how it addresses carbon emissions
  • The microbial process of developing the proprietary fertilizer
  • Profile of customers, to which Kula Bio is catering
  • Kula Bio’s value proposition to farmers
  • Benefits of organic nitrogen-based fertilizer vs. synthetic
  • Origins of Kula Bio’s technology in the Harvard Labs
  • Kula Bio’s commercial traction and milestones
  • The adjacent opportunities and long-term vision of the company
  • Bill’s perspective on scaling and financing Kula Bio
  • Insights and learnings derived from speaking with hundreds of farmers
  • The impact on climate change of Kula Bio’s technology
  • Bill’s reflection on his long-career as an entrepreneur and operator
  • Bill’s view on making impact vs. profits
  • How the economic viability of a climate solution is critical
  • Why impact is an important motivation for entrepreneurs
  • Bill’s retrospective on “Cleantech 1.0” and where it stumbled
  • The role of family offices as a source of long-term financing for clean tech ventures
  • How investor attention now focuses on specific milestones and pragmatic considerations
  • The importance of education and the need to improve STEM as a solution to address climate change
  • Bill’s perspective on nuclear as an important solution that should be scaled
  • Bill’s recommendation on finding purpose-driven opportunities, regardless of your background or stage of life

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Get connected with MCJ: 

*If you liked this episode, please consider giving us a review! You can also reach us via email at info@mcj.vc, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

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