Turning Breakthrough Science Into Business

Summary

Leaders on a Mission — "Turning Breakthrough Science Into Business"
Host: Simon Leich | Guest: Giacomo Bastianelli (CEO, Rainbow Crops)
Date: August 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features Giacomo Bastianelli, a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Rainbow Crops, a VIB spinout leveraging AI, genome editing, and precision breeding to create climate-resilient crops. Host Simon Leich and Giacomo dive into the intersecting worlds of biotech, startup-building, precision agriculture, and commercializing breakthrough science. Key topics include the evolution of plant genetics, the pivotal role of AI and data in crop development, Europe’s shifting regulatory stance, and what it really takes to build high-impact teams and scale next-generation AgTech ventures.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Giacomo's Entrepreneurial Journey and Lessons Learned

[02:40 – 07:25]

• Giacomo’s path: from pharma biotech and neurodegenerative disease ventures (e.g., Parkinson's, cancer) to plant genetics and software startups.
  • "It might be from somebody looking at my career, what I've done is like, okay, this guy's all over the place, though there is a kind of a common thread across what I've done." ([02:45] – Giacomo)
• Early-stage innovation is his passion; he relishes the inventor or initial go-to-market phase over scaling mature businesses.
• The ‘3Ps’ of Startup Success:
  1. People, people, people.
     • Strong execution and team are more decisive than technology alone.
     • "You can have fantastic technology but not the execution and the right team... then it's a dead technology." ([03:15] – Giacomo)
  2. Focus.
     • Scarce resources enforce discipline; too much funding too early can distract.
     • Capital needs careful timing and management.
  3. Market traction before technology push.
     • Problem-first approach is less risky than tech-for-tech’s-sake; willingness to pivot is critical.

Fascination with Plants and Transition from Pharma

[07:25 – 11:26]

• The accidental entry into plant biotech came via a VC scouting project, identifying a business case for targeted recombination in yeast that pivoted to crops.
• Early 2000s anxiety over GM backlash nudged students away from plant biotech; Giacomo originally chose therapeutics, later embracing plant work for its "playful ground"—ability to engineer at scale and complexity without the ethical boundaries of animals/humans.
  • "From an engineering and genetic perspective, plants give you a very playful ground to play with." ([10:19] – Giacomo)

Rainbow Crops: Genesis and Technology

[11:27 – 16:49]

• Rainbow Crops spun out from VIB after Giacomo was approached to shape the business thesis around marrying cutting-edge gene editing (CRISPR multiplexing) with traditional breeding.
  • "The project came from an ERC Advanced Grant… The results in corn were really impressive." ([12:50] – Giacomo)
  • Innovation: blending stacked trait breeding with multiplex CRISPR gene editing to address complex, multi-gene traits.
  • Layer of AI: not an “AI company” but AI is integral to narrowing the target landscape and parsing massive combinatorial genetic possibilities.

The Role and Future of AI in Crop Science

[16:49 – 20:39]

• AI is “pattern recognition at scale”—applicable across multigenic trait modeling; crucial for systems biology and simulating gene interactions.
• Data, not just algorithms, is the competitive moat—future winners will generate proprietary, valuable data sets for model training.
  • "We are now collecting… phenotypic, genotypic, transcriptomic data… spatial omics—these datasets are massive and will be instrumental to understand the biology, the deep biology of the plant." ([19:52] – Giacomo)
• Biological data generation is in its infancy; expect huge strides in next five years.

European Regulation: A New Era for Gene Editing

[20:51 – 24:05]

• Positive momentum: anticipated approval to exempt gene-edited crops from ‘GMO’ regulation—huge for innovation, local market focus, and company formation in Europe.
• Caveats: edit number thresholds may evolve, but door is now open for greater R&D.
• Patent/access debate: Main challenge isn’t patents per se, but equitable access for breeders, researchers, and farmers.
  • "The problem is not really should we allow patent or not. It's more… can these patents be fairly accessed..." ([22:31] – Giacomo)

Tackling Commercialization: Challenges and Models

[24:44 – 27:26]

• Agri-bio startup pain points: Market dominated by a few giants with proprietary germplasm; product development is long, capital-intensive, and IP-driven.
• Rainbow Crops’ business model: Partner with small/medium seed companies—help them upgrade elite germplasm and compete via stacked traits.
• The consumer challenge: Need more visible, consumer-facing trait benefits to fuel acceptance (e.g., seedless blackberries by Pairwise).
• Ecosystem-wide gains if regulation and partnerships enable more European/niche crop development.

Raising Capital in Deep-Tech Agri-Bio

[27:26 – 31:04]

• Funding is a marathon, not a sprint—timelines for ag-genetics closer to pharma, but with lower margins.
• VC’s impatience ill-matched to this cycle; patient capital like evergreen or long-horizon funds are better aligned.
  • "You need investors that are patient to make this technology ready for market." ([28:37] – Giacomo)
• Securing multi-year runway is invaluable for strategic, less frantic scaling.

Team Building and the Startup Founder Phenotype

[31:04 – 35:41]

• Key hiring lesson: Too many co-founders, as in his travel-tech experiment, slows decision-making; two to three is optimal ("the sweet spot").
• First-time founders can bridge gaps with passion and strong networks/advisors.
  • "If you do have the passion for the problem you're trying to solve, you can overcome that gap." ([34:37] – Giacomo)
• Emotional resilience and co-founder support are underrated.

Personal Growth & CEO Evolution

[35:41 – 37:36]

• Giacomo is now more focused on critical business drivers, less emotionally attached to specific inventions/ideas, and more willing to “unplug” failed projects in time.
  • "When you're young, you push… Sometimes you just have to take a seat, look at the door, and maybe there's another backdoor… Trust in the process." ([36:57] – Giacomo)

The Vision for Rainbow Crops

[37:49 – 39:05]

• Goal: Establish Rainbow Crops as a preferred partner in next-gen crop genetics, enabling resilience for climate and other stresses.
• Emphasis on ecosystem building: more companies, partnerships, and broader competitive field benefit all.
  • "We need an ecosystem… I'm all up for collaboration." ([38:26] – Giacomo)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "In biology, we are scratching the surface. We are now collecting… spatial omics, all those kind of datasets are massive and they're going to be instrumental to understand the deep biology of the plant." ([00:00, repeated at 19:52] – Giacomo)
• "In business entrepreneurship, the 3P: it's people, people and people." ([03:00] – Giacomo)
• "From an engineering and biology and genetic engineering perspective, I think plants give you a very playful ground to play with." ([10:19] – Giacomo)
• "We're not an AI company. We use AI in our processes… in particular, target identification, analysis of datasets… to optimize our engineering." ([16:31] – Giacomo)
• "Our business model is to work with seed companies who have germplasm, good germplasm, but not necessarily the capabilities to engineer that using gene editing or breeding and AI." ([25:07] – Giacomo)
• "The sweet spot is around two to three founders." ([33:13] – Giacomo, referencing entrepreneurship research)
• "Trust in the process. Trust in the alignment of the stars in the universe… This makes things more fluid, more smoothly and more natural." ([37:08] – Giacomo)
• "I think the problem is not really, 'Should we allow patent or not?'… It's, 'Can these patents be fairly accessed by farmers, by breeding companies?' That is the key." ([22:29] – Giacomo)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:40 – Giacomo’s startup/CEO experience and the “3P” framework
• 07:25 – How (and why) he switched from pharma to plant tech; “playful ground” of genetic engineering
• 11:55 – Formation and basis for Rainbow Crops; combining CRISPR and breeding
• 16:49 – What AI means in the context of modern crop science; importance of proprietary datasets
• 20:51 – Europe’s gene-editing regulation changes, implications for innovation and competition
• 24:44 – Go-to-market and commercialization in consolidated agri-bio industry
• 27:26 – The funding dilemma in long-cycle deep-tech AgTech
• 31:04 – Team-building, co-founder dynamics, and lessons on hiring for startups
• 35:41 – CEO evolution: focus, detachment, and knowing when to pivot or give up
• 37:49 – Rainbow Crops’ vision and the importance of building a thriving AgTech ecosystem

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Episode Tone and Language

Simon’s style is direct, curious, and supportive; Giacomo is pragmatic, insightful, candid, and optimistic—emphasizing both ambition and humility in the face of business/biological complexity. The episode strikes an engaging balance of technical explanation and strategic thinking, peppered with analogies and advice for entrepreneurs and innovators.

Transcript

[A]

In biology, we are scratching the surface. So we are now collecting. We have phenotypic data, we have genotypic data, we have transcriptomic data, we're going to have single cell tissue specific, so spatial omics, all those kind of data sets are massive and they're going to be instrumental to understand the biology, the deep biology of the plant and how all that works.

[B]

So welcome to this week's episode of Leaders on a Mission. I'm your host Simon Leach and today I've got a great guest on the show today. I've been in contact with him over the last number of years. His name is Giacomo Bastianelli. Giacomo is an entrepreneur, biotech operator, CEO of a company called Rainbow Crops Span out from VIB with an interesting innovation hub and they combine AI, genome editing and precision breeding to really help engineer I suppose the next generation of climate resilient crops. So you know, Giacomo, the background around spanning startups and venture building, you know, he's had, you know, something along like seven to seven CEO kind of jobs, you know, across kind of pharma, biotech, you know, web development, all sorts of different kind of tech as well. So it really brings a unique perspective on what it takes to kind of commercialize frontier science and build a scalable business around long term innovation. So we're going to dive into the future of crop breathing, the intersection of AI and biology, and really talk about the realities of building teams, culture and commercial momentum in across one of the most ambitious areas of agricultural kind of innovation. Quite a complex area as well. Giacomo, thanks so much for coming on today. Great to speak with you.

[A]

Thank you and a pleasure to be here and thanks for having me. Awesome.

[B]

No, I want to just dive straight in on the point I made earlier. Right. I mean clearly you've always been an entrepreneur, right? Seven different CEO positions. I know maybe one was an interim, but ranging across a range of different industries as it were. And I'm wondering, you know, like particularly around any particular lessons or thoughts you've got to glean on being a CEO and working cross and learning new industries and markets as it were. Any pattern yet or lessons essentially around that?

[A]

Yeah, definitely. As you said, you know, it might be from somebody looking at my, my story or my, my career. What I've done is like, okay, this guy's all over the place though there is a kind of a common thread across what I've done. Yeah. So my background in, in essence I'm a biotechnologist, study biotechnology, actually pharma. So that's quite interesting. Because I moved from a pharma to the plant sector and then yeah worked on different companies in the genome engineering space especially. But not only, you know, touch Parkinson cancer as a CEO of a couple companies and then doing some software startup myself in general, let's say my strength is really early stage innovation. Either being myself the inventor or helping an invention to go to market. That's where I feel more excited about scaling up necessarily growing an established business with running operation. That's not really something. Something that excites me as much as the risk and the challenges of the early stage phases. And definitely in the early stage phases, I would say that the three success factors that I've seen across the different companies and also failure factors are three elements and I call that the 3P. In real estate there are the 3L and the 3L are location, location, location. And I think in business entrepreneurship that the 3p it's people, people and people. Because we can have the fantastic technology but then not the execution and the right team to bring it to fruition, then it's a dead technology. At the same time, some companies that had an okay things but then the management was very good doing things that makes the company successful.

[B]

So.

[A]

So I would say that that is the pattern that I've seen and I also experimented myself another aspect maybe when you're very early on and when you need to decide where to invest your, your money, your efforts focus is definitely a key element into the, into the sauce. I'm Italian, so I talked about a little bit food and cooking. So about the rest of you, right, so the three P and then you need the focus and then you need, you need some money. Because in the software today you can build stuff with basically no money. Especially after vibe coding entered the game and all the AI coding, assisted AI coding in biotech, you still need capitals. So now, so you need money now the question is when do you need money and how much money. So sometimes having too much money too early on can be detrimental unless you're very grounded and having that focus in mind. So you keep the reserve and you just not dilute yourself your efforts. So that's another important element, you know the link between the money and the focus. Sometimes I maybe I was unlucky to didn't have a lot of funds in my company, in my previous company. So I had to be laser focus. Sometimes I realized I needed more money and that could have been the break or make it and probably one of my previous company lounge we had some traction but there was not enough to sustain the company. And so we needed more money. There was no money. And happy to tell more about these kind of learnings later on. And then I would say a key element, also a key pattern, is the market traction. So probably that is the, a lot of inventors, even myself, but also others. You know, you think about a product, you think about technology and then you fall in love with it and then you need to find, you know, an application for it. But the more and more, the more I matured, let's say as an entrepreneur, the more you see how this approach could work. You can get lucky. However, probably the other approach is more, less risky. So, okay, I have a problem. How can I solve that problem? Is that the technology that I have in hand, is that something else that it bring you to bring in to make it work and not being too attached emotionally to what you're built and being open that you need something else to add on or completely something different. And then you need to be able to accept that and pivot. So these are kind of some of the, of the learnings along the way.

[B]

Fabulous. Tell me though, what was the fascination with the plant then? You know, you moved from Parkinson's and cancer and you know, what was it just broadly because you've spent like it looks like a fair chunk of the career, you know, looking at innovations and technologies, you know, within the, you know, agricultural space, particularly around kind of breeding and the genome as it were, and now obviously with rainbow crops as well. Right. So you know, you've looked, you've gone away and you've come back. That's interesting. You know, what a. Why, why'd you keep coming back, I suppose is probably better question.

[A]

So maybe, maybe I'll tell the reason how I got into this topic. So I was finishing my PhD in bioinformatics in Paris and I wanted to, during my PhD, I always wanted to look at innovation starting companies. So I started working as a kind of a part time scouter, venture builder analyst for a venture capital fund based in Paris called Kurma Life Science Partners. Back then it was at the beginning. So they had their first fund in 2009 and I joined to help them to scout for innovation. And there was this patent sitting on the, on the shelf of the Curie Institute in Paris that was about targeting recombination in East. And so we look at it and then we figured that there was a business case not in east, not in Mouse, because that was also another action that the Curie Institute was taking to see if they're developing Better mouse model, but really in plans. And I remember back then with the fund they proposed me, okay, if we're able to negotiate a license, why don't you take over and we will invest first, first check and we, we do application in crops and, and see if that would work. And so that was back in 20, 2010 so 16 years ago. And that, what brought me into this field now, the reason why I didn't study plant biotech, this is maybe a funny story, is when I was a student, so in the early 2000, it was the moment where there was a lot of backlash against the gm. And I remember that I had to choose what direction I would take for my specialization so I could choose pharma, industrial biotech, medical agriculture and something else. And so nobody was going to agriculture and I did because we said okay, well what if this continues? What are we going to do with our degree in the plant biotech if this GM movement against the. This use goes on? So that's why I chosen for, for therapeutics, which is still I'm, I'm quite interested about the field of human health, don't get me wrong. But from an engineering and biology and genetic engineer perspective, I think plants gives you the, a very, a playful ground to play with.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What, what, what makes it a more playful ground?

[A]

It makes playful because if you engineer a plant or engineer a human is, is very different. Right. So you can do impl things that in humans or animals you cannot do. And they're quite different from bacteria because bacteria are very simple organism. Plant is a complex organism that we can play with. Hopefully they don't have consciousness because sometimes you feel like, okay, well if plants have some sort of consciousness, what we're doing to them, maybe it's not that great. But besides that I think it was. Makes it attractive because you can play a lot of things from a genetic engineering perspective.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, the genomes are generally more complex as well in terms of the number of genes and. Yeah, yeah, okay.

[A]

Even more complex than humans.

[B]

Yes, yeah, yeah. Amazing, amazing. And so tell us a little bit around, you know, with, with rainbow crops. Right. You know, it looked like you were working at VIB and you were working on maybe the thesis around the business and then you ended up spinning it out. So maybe tell us a little bit about that story and then tell us a little bit about rainbow crops, particularly around, you know, the crops that you're looking to affect, as it were.

[A]

Yeah, so the, the story was the following. That was back in 2023 the former chairman of Mayenics, Johan Cardun, that unfortunately passed away a few months ago. Great man, great leader. I think we're going to miss him personally, but also professionally because it's been great for the whole industry or at the global level. So he called me up because he knew that I was looking for new challenges. And he said okay, Giacomo, there is some. There is a paper at the vib. Here is the paper. So he sent me the paper. And the VIB is request is receiving a lot of requests from the industry. So they might be thinking about spinning out a company, but they're not ready yet to engage with an external, let's say entrepreneur to help them. So and then that was in. In April 2023 and three months later they contacted me. I met, met with them. There was a click with the V of course that I knew, but also the scientific founder. I really like what they had in terms of results. They had this. So the, the project came from an ERC Advanced Grant in Europe led by Dirkinsee, the VAB1 of and Hilden Ellison, the scientific founder. And the results that they got in corn were really impressive. And the, you know, the concept was quite simple. I said that we have gene editing and we have breeding. So the old way and the new way, but what about combining the two? So instead of having to do gene one by one, breeding is about combining into the plant different characteristics, different allele variation that enhance certain trait. And gene editing is about modifying several genes. And in particular the multiplex capability of CRISPR allows you to modify multiple genes at the same time. So what if you bring these two together and leverage the breeding component to stack the edits and you leverage the multiplex capabilities or CRISPR to edit multiple things at the same time to tackle complex traits. So non monogenic, but very complex or multi multigenic traits. And that was what. What attracted me initially. And then by I started working with them as an entrepreneur in residence to build up the, as you said, the business thesis around it. And then I brought maybe because my, my background in software and bioinformatics. I said okay, we really push on on the, on the AI side, on the data generation, on modeling, because that would help us to reduce the combinatorial space that we're going to be confronted to. Because when you want to improve, let's say a trait such as yield or drought or other complex agronomic trait, you might have hundreds of targets potential. So now the question and you cannot screen the combinatorial space for that to have statistically Significant results is massive. So AI is helping to narrow down the number of targets. So we use data and AI modeling to reduce the number of targets. And then we generate the population of plants with different combination of edits that work. And then we can screen for a specific trait and we can identify which are the few edits that are really responsible for the enhancement that we see when we phenotype them. And that was process that took about two years from building the business case, building a advancing with a partnership with the SIG company that might be announced in. In a few weeks from now. And also we. We got in the meantime as we were building the thesis, Gates foundation got in touch with us because they figured that we were the most kind of advanced at doing this. Combining the multiplex, the breeding. And they saw this potential for developing the next generation up genetics for Africa and Asia. So for small medium whole farmers. And that definitely help into the whole process. Having Gates having a sizable Grant. So that was 7 million grant that was announced few months ago. And that helped to the whole thing downstream also convincing investors, convincing everyone that we are going the right direction with this technology.

[B]

Awesome. So the difference really is about combining both aspects of this together as it was the gene editing and the breeding kind of aspects of it.

[A]

Yeah. And then the layer of AI is an. We're not an AI company. We use AI in our processes and in particular to this target identification and analysis of data sets in order to find to. To optimize our capability and scalability of our engineering.

[B]

Yeah. Now tell me someone like with your background in bioinformatics and kind of data and you know, you've been looking at algorithms and I suppose components of AI for years. Right. I would have thought. But right now like what I hear about. You hear the buzz with AI and crop development, et cetera and I always hear about like where people are now that there being a complexity about the amount of data available, for instance. You know, and I'm just wondering like when you. When you think about the innovation and you think about the future. Like you know, maybe just get a sense of I suppose how AI is really changing the way that you can approach this cop development and prediction. But particularly where we are on the journey around that, you know.

[A]

Yeah. So AI is particularly depending. AI is very big broad name that encapsulates so many approaches. Machine learning, classical, more advanced. But. But let's say that AI and the capability to do pattern recognition much, much faster than the human brain. I mean so that part of pattern recognition is definitely what is Attractive in biology in particular for and this also goes into human disease as well because they're mostly, most of them are multigenic and multifactorial. In our specific case of crop genetics, when you're looking at multiple factors influencing a trait, then these models are particularly useful for understanding contribution, modeling contribution, simulating contribution of different genes. So imagine they are particularly suitable for system biology approaches. So complex graphics, understanding relationships. I think we are at the beginning of the journey because I don't think the models themselves will be the key. Here is more the data that you have that can train those models that makes the difference. And I think that's where the differentiating point of different companies will be on your capacity to generate valuable data sets that can train the model because otherwise everyone can just take the public available data sets and trainers but that's not where the real value is.

[B]

So every year that goes by more data sets and more information and you know, we're just at the beginning of the journey though, right around I suppose what's going to be feasible in five years time, for instance.

[A]

Yeah, for sure. And if you compare for example to the LLM and you know, the ChatGPT, Gemini and Tropic and all the different products they, they've been struggling with the training so they don't have enough data because it's text, it's human text that has been trained with. So now they're talking about synthetic data, other ways of generating that. Those data sets in biology we are scratching the surface. Right. So we are now collecting, we have phenotypic data, we have genotypic data, we have transcriptomic data, we're going to have single cell tissue specific so spatial omics, all those kind of data sets are massive and they're going to be instrumental to understand the biology, the deep biology of the plant and how all that works. So that's where I see in the future really, the AI making a big play is in the data generation and how that is influencing the AI and the output of it.

[B]

Yeah, as an entrepreneur it must be a very exciting time to be in this business.

[A]

Yes. Especially after Europe seems to have opened up to the regulatory and the NGT one. So the gene edited crops from a regulatory perspective.

[B]

Yeah, tell, just tell me around this because I wasn't 100% sure when what was the key piece of legislation or change because I always thought, you know, Europe, it was moving towards it but the way you are talking there, it sounds a lot more positive for European markets.

[A]

So there is this framework that is in final Trilateral, I think negotiation right now. And from my conversation that I had with people in this topic, actively working this topic, it looks like we are heading towards an approval maybe later, later this year or early next year of the the proposal that was to exempt gene edited crops from the GM legislation. So that will be considered more as traditional breeding. With some little caveats. Is Amanda, the amount of edits that you can make so that like this 20 nucleotides kind of threshold. But I think this is just for the beginning because we soon realizing that kind of limit is, is not feasible because plants have multiple modifications. We need to make multiple modifications if we want to have a performing crop. But it's the right step in opening up and then I'm sure there will be some revisitation on these kind of thresholds. But at least that the gene edited crops are not considered gm. That is a major, a major change in the regulation. And there was also some, some discussion about patenting the traits. So they, there are certain organization and I can understand they didn't want to have the traits patentable. However, that would create problems for small companies, for even research institutes who do innovation. They don't have a germplasm but they have knowledge to build traits that they can license out. I think the problem is not really should we allow patent or not. It's more should we can these patents be fairly accessed by farmers, by breeding companies? That is the key and we should all work for that goal. And I think there are organizations in Europe that are working towards that goal to make those patents accessible non exclusively in Europe.

[B]

Oh yeah, that's great. Thank you for that. No, it's good to hear and good to see. It's been a source of frustration and you see it so much with European companies. Their first product. Well, the biggest market is always the US that they look to go to for regulatory kind of reasons as well. You know, not many, you know, focus on Europe and you know, because of this. So yeah, it certainly helps European companies I would have thought, you know, have business in Europe.

[A]

That's Yeah.

[B]

A good situation in future.

[A]

Indeed. And to develop traits and varieties that are for Europe rather than having a global approach and then having something that is not necessarily tailored for the geography or for the needs of Europe. So I think this is, this is great that we're not losing the train.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. Tell me. I'd love to dive into, you know, the realities around commercialization of your platform, as it were because it's, you know, the long development cycles, you know, Challenges I suppose with you know, when you look at incumbent companies in the industry, it's quite consolidated industry. So how can you think about like, you know, I know you love these kind of things. It's probably why you love the early stage stuff. But you know, when you think about commercialization and you think about route to market and you think about you know, really the future for this company, how do you think about that?

[A]

Yeah, that's a lot of thoughts going into that. That question as you describe, you know, the industry is highly consolidated, is based on material. So germplasm, that's where the, the gold of the companies is, is not necessarily on the trade. Yeah, maybe some GM trade. Okay. But it's really the germplasm and the capacity to enhance that Joan Plasm. So I think for us as. Let's describe ourselves as a trait discovery also company using new technology in our approach and breeding. We definitely we. Our business model is to work with sick companies who have germplasm, good germplasm, but not necessarily the capabilities to, to engineer that using gene editing or breeding and AI. And that's where we are helping them to bridge that gap. Now the, the big guys, they can do it themselves. But there are so many medium sized breeding companies, seed companies with good material and no capability. So I think there is an opportunity to, to help them to bring their germplasm to another level and be more competitive and you know, answering the, the. The challenges of farmers, but also consumers. Which is something that in this gene editing space and discussion about regulation. I think this is something that has made things more difficult. The fact that there's no clear yet in the market really globally a trait that consumers see benefits because after all it's coming from the consumer kind of the overall acceptance or non acceptance of the technology. And then that goes into the association, the politicians and Europe for example. So I think moving forward and I'm happy of certain developments. For example example pear wise with their BlackBerry without seeds something that really consumer can appreciate and can understand. Okay, I see where this technology can have a benefit for. For me. Okay. Without seeds is maybe not a groundbreaking type of. Type of trait, but maybe more nutritious food or maybe understanding that they can reduce the use of pesticides that that is gonna be helpful for them. Going back to the point of regulatory.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and what is like. And also like as it relates to. You know, you've got the grant now as it were. Right. As well. But as it relates to Building relationships and, and driving revenue growth as it were. Well, what are the biggest challenges that a company like Rainbow Crops would, would have taken this to the market? The biggest objections you have to kind

[A]

of overcome people I think in as you said on the revenue capability to generate revenue. This is a, a long term game when you develop varieties. I mean even pharma is a very long, long term right to develop a drug you take at least 10 years but the difference is that the reward is much higher. So the margins in agriculture are small, the, the timelines are as long as pharma. So therefore you need a different maybe framework for funding these innovations. And you know I've been to several meetings and conference and there's been discussions about fundraiser funding, agriculture, ad tech, I mean not talking about precision ag, you know, software and hardware. That's probably okay in terms of time, but really like breeding, genetics and plant biotech, crop protection but also seed and genetics. It just takes a long time and wonder if the VC model is suitable. Probably not. Maybe it's evergreen funds would be a better choice or just because it would take at least you know, 10 years before you start generating sizable revenues especially from royalties. Right. So you have hannomycens and royalties but it takes a few years before you can start generating those revenues. So you need that kind of patient capital available. And we have been lucky to have as a first speed funding that would be announced in a couple of weeks to have also funds that have a long term view and vision and they marry that they don't need to return in six years or seven years. So that fits our model. And then maybe with a series A we can go with more traditional VC with tighter timelines knowing that we have already gained kind of three years and so that would fit. But again this goes into the discussion, the challenge going back to the challenge is really how to get the right investors that are patient to make this technology ready for market.

[B]

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's a moving, yeah, it's a moving paradigm I suppose. You know and I can't believe that the job generally the job of a CEO founder of a startup these days and how much time is spent on the investment side of things, which I know is so crucial because without it there's no company. But you know, like some of the data points and you know, the percentage of time you know is you know, 60, 70, 80% of time it's securing the funding and it sounds like it's pretty, you know, it's. Yeah, it's a challenge.

[A]

Yes it is. And Again I'm. We have been, yeah, I would say we've been lucky in, in a sense that we were able to, that the process went smoothly. I mean it took time but still it went smoothly on and now we have. I especially wanted to secure enough funding so that I don't need to go in two years and have to go roadshow again or a year and a half. But with this round of financing we're going to have it for, for at least four years, four to five depending on some extra grant, but at least four. And so that gives us the time to mature the technology, start generating revenues from partnerships. We might raise another round in before but it's not that we are in the need for it. So I think that's up.

[B]

Sounds great. Sounds great. It really does. It gives you so much more time to, you know, to, to be more strategic. I suppose I made longer term decisions, you know. So thank you for sharing And I'm kicking to touch upon a little bit around the, you know, my day here was more headhunting stuff and headhunting work. So you're thinking about like building teams and culture. You know, I'm curious like, you know, as you look to scale and grow, you know and you've, you've done this many times with hiring, you know, for you tell me a little bit about the phenotype of the individual that you think works well in a startup environment and maybe even talking about things that you've got wrong before and when it came to people and what was it that you've, you've realized doesn't work as it were, that kind of thing.

[A]

Yeah, maybe I can start with that, with that example. So back in 2010 I, I launched a, during my PhD, I had this idea of for several years about connecting travelers who were going to the same place, kind of a social network for travel. So just completely out of the biotech space, more in the software. So I started developing that platform with a couple people. Then we realized because we are PhD, no money to invest so we needed more people to help. So I started bringing in other people as a co founders and in the end we're like seven co founders and it was very messy, messy to take decision. And so then you realize that it's important to have of course founders because I still believe that everyone brings something in the table in terms of competencies, execution, behavior. But then we were just too many. And so I was like last last week at a conference in Wageningen and there was a research in entrepreneurship and she was Sharing that. Yeah. The sweet spot is around two to three founders.

[B]

NASA is right. Two to three. Yeah.

[A]

Then it depends on the industry. Some industries you might go with solo founders, I would say software especially the case but whenever things are a bit more complex. So you need some technical expertise, you need some business capabilities, skills. Then for example like in biotech, then you know, having two, three founders, that's probably the sweet spot.

[B]

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I, and I see that and you see a lot of founders that doing it for the first time as, as well both call it a technical role but the CEO, you know, a lot of the time doing it for the first time and, and learning on the job. And I always wonder, I know there are some brilliant examples of entrepreneurs that learnt on the job, first job and then scale companies to billions as it were. Right. But it always feels to me like there is such a gap with broad knowledge. It must be a massive gap to fill doing it for the first time and yeah, that's. Yeah, that's a challenge. Yeah. Any thoughts on that? Because you've come across lots of people in this space that haven't necessarily, you know, got the background and experience to go with it.

[A]

So.

[B]

Do you think I'm over indexing experience here?

[A]

No, I think you. So I was reading like this comparison about experience versus versus the very, very strong passion. So I think if you do have the passion for the problem and you're trying to solve, you can overcome that gap. Now don't get me wrong, it's good to surround yourself with people who can help you. So I think that's the key as a maybe first time founder, never started a company and if you're alone, think about maybe getting on board another co founder and if not just surround yourself with mentors or advisors who can help you along the journey.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[A]

Because when things are, when things get heavy and difficult, having a co founder is really helpful just to, to let things out, you know, from an emotional perspective too. Right. So somebody that you can rely and you can, you can talk and can be supported when you're alone. Yeah, you're alone. So that makes it a little bit more difficult.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm wondering like if we were having this chat 10, 11 years ago when you were starting out, you know, towards the beginning stages of your career. Now having worked, you know, you've had some failures, things that just, you know, you mentioned language like where you are right now, how what's changed about you as a CEO of an early stage company with, with the things that you've learned by how do you show up and operate in your role now based on the sum of your experiences?

[A]

I would say that I am so more focused on the really things that matter for the business. Second, I'm less attached to the idea, the invention and you're more pragmatic and it's not an itsuk and it's also very, it's very healthy to do that, to have that detachment. And also my previous failures is like you learn how to, when to unplug. When you say okay, I think this is not worth it moving forward and investing more time and money. And so these are some of the, of the learnings that I have today and definitely more, more than maybe looking at maybe in the past. When you're young, you push, you push and you, you know, you try to open that door and with strength and power and it doesn't work. Sometimes you just have to take a, take a, take a seat, look at the door and maybe there's another back door that you haven't looked at it. And so just be. Trust in the process. Trust in the alignment of the stars in the universe. That sounds very spiritual, but I think this is more the approach that I'm taking and overall I think it makes things more fluid, more smoothly and more natural.

[B]

Yeah, I like that. Trust in the process.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

No, it's awesome. And just final question. When you think about like, you know, I don't know, your hopes and dreams for rainbow crops, you know, like, you know what, what's feasible, what's the goal and ambition, do you think?

[A]

I think it's what is part of our vision is to really help to develop this next gen crop genetics working with companies. So we, we want to establish ourselves as a preferred partner, trustable partner who can help them with their, for example, elite material to bring it to the other level that we need in order to sustain climate change, but also other type of stresses for our crops, I think it's, it's possible there are challenges along the line, along the way, but that's, that's something that is definitely achievable and I hope that we're not alone. I mean we need, we need an ecosystem and you know, I'm all up for collaboration in general. I think the, the ecosystem must thrive. We need to have more compete, more competitors, more companies in this space. And unfortunately this has not been the case because also the regulation in Europe made more difficult to, to build a company on this topic. So I hope that, and there are, and I'm happy to see more companies raising more funds, but also making partnerships with other sick companies. And I think that's where we all have to push together for. Yeah. For a better future of agriculture.

[B]

No. Great. And Giacomo, thanks so much for coming on. I've really enjoyed the chat. It's been fascinating, really looking through your career and background experiences and your work currently with Rainbow Crops and the work with the AI and precision breathing and all fascinating stuff. And so appreciate you coming on today. Thanks so much.

[A]

Thank you, Sam. It's been a pleasure.