Last week, Slack Capital - an Australian investment research publication - released an investment report on eXoZymes, accompanied by multiple interviews with our management team. This is the last of four interviews and is with the Chairman of our Board of Directors, Chris Marlett from MDB Capital. The interview focuses on MDB's process of selecting high-tech companies to take public, as well as Marlett's take on the potential of eXoZymes.

The full investment report is available here and completely free. The investment report is also available in audio format, via YouTube or Spotify.

eXoZymes Disclaimer
This content references an independent investment research report prepared and published by a third-party organization, Slack Capital. The views, opinions, estimates, forecasts, and conclusions expressed in the report are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views or positions of eXoZymes. While select members of the management team from eXoZymes were interviewed as part of the creation of this report, eXoZymes did not commission, contribute to, or review the report prior to its publication. The inclusion of this report on our website is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement, guarantee, or representation of its accuracy, completeness, or relevance. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own due diligence and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

About Slack Capital
Slack Capital is an Australian investment research publication dedicated to uncovering and sharing a select number of high-impact company reports focused on asymmetric investment opportunities, with a primary focus on commodities, deep technology and breakthrough innovations. At the heart of Slack Capital are in-depth, free company reports, often the result of over 50 hours of research, where all available information on a company is meticulously compiled and filtered into a centralised report. These reports provide an extensive understanding, often including direct conversations with a company’s management team. They serve as the foundation of an investment thesis and sharpen conviction. Please read and understand Slack Capital's General Investment Disclaimer here. More on Slack Capital here.

Video transcript

In the final conversation of eXoZymes interview series, I sit down with Christopher Marlett, the CEO of MDB Capital and Chairman of eXoZymes. In today's conversation, we speak about MDB's vetting process back in 2019 and how they supported eXoZymes, enlisting on the Nasdaq exchange.

Last year. Enjoy the conversation. We started the mission. Okay. behind MDB was really, could we really launch big ideas or meaningful companies? And previous to starting MDB, I had worked at various brokerage firms and funded companies that I thought could be meaningful companies.

And one of the things I had learned is that companies that were sort of category leaders did very well in the public markets. And they also did well in the private markets, but leadership was pretty critical.

So immediately when we started MDB, we started focusing on, can we stand up companies? And largely worked very much on taking them public because we believed that taking them public was really preferable to thinking about or worrying about running a fund.

And we liked the idea of people could sort of take an ad hoc approach to investing in a company if they liked it or not. And we just, our background, you know, led us into the public markets as opposed to the private markets.

And then over the years, obviously it developed into a thing where, you know, we are fully committed to taking companies public early. And as part of our process. And we think that it's much preferable to the traditional sort of venture approach.

Great. Yeah. Thanks for the introduction, Chris. So can you detail the core mission and the aspects of MDB Capital and how this distinguishes your company from other venture funds in the space? I think that most founders of really uniquely differentiated deep tech companies have a hard time of, you know, really differentiating them and standing them up.

They're usually people that have discovered really meaningful technology, haven't gone through the process of standing a new company up. And so we recognize that the skill set of actually doing that and not just, you know, not just financing, but actually setting the company up for success was a really critical element that was important and much more important than the actual capital.

And so we just from a, you know, very early stages, recognize that and realize that we needed to, if we were going to, invest in this asset class, if you will, invest in this asset class, if you will, and take companies public early, we had to, you know, we had to really be co-founders with the scientists.

Couldn't just, you know, put money in and say, good luck, you know, or, you know, put money in and offer a little advice. It was a very, a very, it was a joint process in standing these companies up. So, you know, very different and which also limits, our ability to do, you know, the number of companies.

So when you look at a traditional venture fund, they'll put money in many companies with the idea that one, you know, one company works, it pays for 10 losers. And we always took the approach, every one of our companies has to work because we're not doing that many companies.

And so it's just a different orientation. Yeah. And I think that's such a significant point. You're there in the trenches with your scientific co-founders. Working on that business development front to give that company and that idea a much greater chance of success.

So prior to get involved with the company's big ideas, you assess whether an idea has merit, whether it has a degree of economic value, and whether it fits your pillars of requirements. Now, I know last year in 2024, MDB assessed over 9,000 ideas.

And this year, it's on track to assess over 16,000 big ideas, which is quite phenomenal. So what does this internal vetting process look like at MDB? You know, I started doing this in the 90s before the internet actually didn't start doing it actually in the early 90s and even late 80s. I was kind of right out of college doing this stuff.

And there was no internet. And so actually screening things was really difficult. So the first company we kind of put together and launched out of MDB was a technology. It was an antiviral company focused on AIDS. And so, you know, you couldn't just look online and read papers and things like that.

So, you know, somebody knew the head of AIDS research at Stanford and introduced me and, you know, and so I'd call him up to diligence and he became the medical director of the company. And that's, you know, how the company was born.

But as the internet came along and, you know, gave us the ability to screen a lot more companies, you know, quicker. So our diligence process has been truncated, not just by the advent of the internet, but also just learning what's important.

And in 2003, we started to really understand the role of intellectual property. And that's when we started to build our own patent database to be able to quickly look at a new company and then determine if there was leadership potential from an IP perspective.

And we still, that database today is obviously, you know, has been transformed. Over 22 years. But it's the core of what we do. And so when you look at 9,000 ideas, it sounds like, wow, how do you do that? Well, the great news is, is that we can literally spend sometimes less than an hour reviewing a new idea and seeing is there, is there that leadership potential? So, but we had to, beyond having the database and the discipline, we had to train analysts.

And so now a big part of our analysts and analysts and so now a big part of our process was training analysts so that they could spend that hour or two hours or whatever the time necessary to determine whether there's leadership so that we can get through thousands of ideas a year because I knew it was a numbers game.

And so the odds of us finding something good in the 90s was dramatically lower than us being able to find something today. Because we just, because we just, it's sort of like whatever bumped in front of us.

We, you know, you know, we, we would try to obviously talk to people that, that, that were scientists and things like that and network and what have you. But now we have the ability to go to a conference like, you know, the JP Morgan conference or the bio conference and literally review all their technologies, all their IP, before we even show up, set up meetings.

We can have, you know, and we may look through hundreds of various, you know, companies that are attending and then, you know, find the 20 or 30 that we think are really interesting and set up meetings.

And so our process has been, you know, highly evolved since then. And it's why I tell people that our odds of finding good stuff now is much higher than it ever was. So, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, I think we, you know, we found great stuff in the early 2000s and late 90s, but I think our ability to find things now are much greater as a result of scaling our analyst platform, you know, honing our process and, and taking the, you know, taking the approach we do, which is, you know, just focusing on leadership.

And so I think what you'll see in lots of other VC firms is they'll, it's kind of, they tend to be thematic. And so AI is hot. So they have to, someone starts an AI fund and next thing you know, they're, you know, they're just going to go into AI, you know, and yeah, they might have a particular area or focus or what have you, but we're, we're, we're not thematic.

We're very much just, can it be a leader? And, you know, generally it's deep tech we focus on. Yeah. So I'll be touching on the patent aspects later in the discussion. Obviously it seems like it's one of the core aspects of your vetting process.

So then what are the other pillars in which you look for in these big tech ideas? Well, it's obviously got to be big. It's got to be unique. Otherwise it can't be a leader in a new technology category.

So, and the other, I would say main thing is sort of understanding market insertion, understanding, you know, how difficult is this new technology going to be to get into the marketplace? How much of a margin bucket is really being disrupted? Meaning, you know, yeah, it might be a better way of doing something, but what does it really mean financially? And will there be a huge incentive to adopt the new technology? So that, that kind of relates to market insertion.

And then the other thing too, is really timeliness, you know, is this, is this something that's going to take multiple years to develop? Or is it something that, you know, we see as being relevant in the near future? Meaning it can be either commercial or in many cases, you know, a larger player wants to joint venture it, you know, early.

Good example, good example might be, you know, drug drugs don't have to be, you know, really near market. They just have to be near an inflection point technically. And then, or clinically. And so that's how we, we evaluate.

So there's a, I would say some of the mistakes we've made historically is betting on technologies and not products. And so I think we've realized that if we can't imagine the product, then we need to, we need to perhaps take a step back.

We told the product. And that's actually been probably the most difficult thing with eXoZymes is that we knew the technology was disruptive, but there were so many product opportunities. That, that, that, that we had to, to really, you know, spend a lot of time figuring out where do we focus, you know? Yeah.

I can imagine that this vetting process gives you quite a high degree of confidence in the investment that MDB Capital makes because the biotech sector is inherently risky. So then to that front, what have been some of the past successful launches of big ideas that were supported by MDB Capital? Yeah.

You know, a company we launched, um, several years, you know, the last three IPOs before eXoZymes all sort of had billion dollar valuations from kind of ideas. Um, the earliest one was a company called Pulse Biosciences.

And it was just sort of, I was reviewing, uh, a technology. I was on a technology review panel for USC where I had a school and, um, and they had a technology where they pulsed electricity into cells and it induced, uh, program, you know, natural cell death called apoptosis.

And I was pretty excited because I said, wow, you've got, you know, a device that effectively induces natural cell death, if you will. Um, which had the impact of, you know, being able to eradicate a piece of tissue without scarring and things like that.

So I was like, wow, this could be really interesting and what have you. And I got back to my office and I was pretty excited about it. And they got on patent best and I said, oh, darn, um, the, you know, these guys at USC aren't the only ones doing this.

There's two other big groups doing it. So I went back to USC and I was so excited. I said, you know, listen, I'm, I'm kind of thinking that, um, I'm really interested in this, but, you know, I want to talk to the other guys in the space that are doing this.

And they said, well, you know, we know them all, they don't have anything, you know, they're really, you know, and of course, when you call those guys up, they say, oh yeah, those guys at USC don't have anything, you know? And so I, I made it pretty clear to all three groups that they all probably won't have anything unless they get together and combine all their IP. And it was, you know, it was one of those deals that were the degree of difficulty was pretty high because you're getting three groups to work together and fold all their IP into a new co, which is what we did.

And so we did that. You know, you know, did a small funding around $5 million that we took them public. And, and it's, it's been, it's been a very interesting company, but because it was, we own the IP in this, what they call sub micro, sub microsecond pulses that induce this, um, non-thermal, we'll call ablation of tissue.

Um, it can be used for cosmetic purposes, use for cardiac ablation, use for, cancer. And there's a lot of cancer. And there's a lot of interesting aspects of, of why it's preferable to other forms of tissue ablation.

So very large markets. Um, but again, it was just us being able to see the landscape pretty clearly and then getting them all together, uh, took a public, very small offering, $20 million offering, went to a billion, billion and change market value.

Um, and, you know, so it's been, it's been, it's been a great one. Um, and we've, um, you know, since then we've had some others, uh, we had another company called, uh, prevention. And that one was a bit different.

Um, we used IP to look at licensing technologies that we thought were, um, therapeutics, uh, for autoimmune disease. And we had a great, you know, I think team that we were working with to do this. And we selected a number of assets and, uh, took the company public as sort of a strategic platform to basically look at a different way of, uh, looking at autoimmune disease.

And so we, we got an approval on one of the, one of the, uh, drugs and which led to the company being bought out about 2.9 billion a couple of years ago. And so, um, again, these were both companies that didn't exist.

They were sort of, you know, they were sort of, you know, ideas on the back of an envelope that turned into valuable. So, you know, we're, we started to think that, you know, there's some luck involved.

We don't know how much, but we, we think that it was pretty deliberate what we did in both cases. And, uh, and I think that, you know, it's sort of the same deliberate approach we took with eXoZymes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. They're both really impressive examples. Uh, and it really highlights the experience of MDB capitals board and the management team and also the process in which the company is established.

Uh, so now diving into eXoZymes, uh, which you're the chairman of, how did you discover the company and what were your initial impressions? Yeah. So our analyst team, again, they're reviewing thousands of opportunities.

And so they were at a, um, one of the things they do is they review, they review scientific publications a lot. So they read things like cell and nature and things like that, that report on, on big, you know, big new ideas.

Um, but they, they were at the ARPA-E conference, uh, which is the, you know, government sponsored entity. And, and, um, they were looking at all the exhibitors and one of them was from UCLA and, um, um, we were looking at SynBio as a, as a space, but they had a different differentiated approach to SynBio.

And, um, they were there at the ARPA, at the ARPA conference because they, they were getting a lot of, uh, DOE grants and energy grants for, uh, their work in, in developing biofuels. Uh, but they were also working in cannabinoids and other areas.

And, and, and so, again, our analyst team looked through the, you know, hundreds of people that were there and thought this one was interesting and, you know, bubbled it up a bit. Said this one's about as crazy as it gets because everybody else in SynBio is doing it differently.

And these guys are, you know, these guys have a differentiated approach and that's a big screening mechanism there, you know, for us. And, you know, immediately looked at it and, uh, that's how, that's how we stumbled upon it.

Yeah. So like all ideas, which the company assesses, you start with your own internal vetting process. So what did this look like specifically with eXoZymes? Well, you know, I think that the whole idea really was, is that, you know, if you take the enzymes that are in these, in these cells that are typically genetically, you know, genetically engineered, the enzymes do the work and the cell kind of is the machinery that generates these enzymes and what have you.

But when you looked at the degree of difficulty of trying to engineer this perfect microbe that produces these things and spits out, you know, clean chemicals and, you know, it just, it, it just seemed crazy that that was the way everyone was going.

And we just said, you know, if you could just take the enzymes out, and use them, it makes a lot more sense. And so we started talking to everybody in SynBio, all the experts and, and they all kind of just said, it was kind of funny, but they all said, yeah, it makes more sense, but where are you going to get the enzymes? And that was really the big problem, which was, you know, you can't just go to the corner store and pick up these enzymes.

And, you know, um, so you had to not only engineer the enzymes, you know, you had to engineer a cell to produce the enzymes. Right. And then harvest those enzymes. Right. And then, and then go to work with, and I think that that's, you know, we had to get over the fact that they could be made.

Right. And, and, and, you know, some of the reactions, you know, would take lots of enzymes. And so you had to make lots of different, you know, series of enzymes, which, you know, was a bridge too far for a lot of people to think that that was, you know, you know, feasible, you know, feasible, but we looked at it and said, well, you know, to engineer the perfect microbe to create a chemical takes seven years and lots of millions of dollars and you're, you know, and, and still, you know, you don't have a very clean system to be able to produce that chemical.

And so for us, it was just, you know, if we're going to make a bet on SynBio, it's going to be, it's going to be, you know, by a cell-free method and, you know, enzymes as opposed to using a cell as a, as a mechanism to create a chemical.

And it was, you know, it, and, and I think that that's why we were, we were a bit hesitant because it was probably more early than any company, any concept, but it was kind of bigger. Meaning, I mean, you can make, you can make almost any, you know, between, you know, it's limitless if you get it figured out.

And so we, you know, we figured that, well, if we could make a kilo of something that people will go, whoa, this is pretty important. Right. And, and so we just focused, you know, we just had them focus.

So that was, that's how we kind of got behind it. This was in a period when SynBio and cell-based chemical manufacturing was a really hot topic. And there was a lot of funding and a lot of interest going into that space.

So apart from, as you said, the platform and its core fundamental aspects, what other areas or standout points, elevated X designs when you're assessing the company? It was hard because, you know, we started, you know, we started, you know, we started seeing my, it was hot.

Everybody was throwing money at it. Our approach was so different. You know, we certainly couldn't be deemed to be a leader because we were going so opposite of the way other people were going. You know, I think that what stood out was literally, we could make something quickly, but we could, we could make a cannabinoid, we could make a kilo of cannabinoids synthetically that, you know, really nobody else was doing, you know, and, you know, we could make stuff nobody else could make.

And, and initially it was the yields. And if you looked at the yield of cell-based, you know, whatever, choose your cannabinoid, they might get, you know, some of them are getting milligrams, but some are getting grams, you know, per liter of production.

We were getting tens of, you know, we were getting 20 and 30 grams. So we were getting, in some cases, over a thousand fold yield, which has a dramatic, obviously impact on costs, but also, we were getting pure, pure material with less downstream processing.

So, you know, getting much higher yields, very low processing costs because you get nearly pure, pure chemical. It just was kind of a no-brainer that if you're going to use SinBio, that this approach is going to be the way to do it.

Exactly. And that's what really stuck out to me was the yields and the titers that the platform was achieving compared to existing manufacturing methods. And I recommend that listeners head over to my company report to find out about these details of eXoZymes' past scientific publications.

And also something to think about is the fact that these results were published quite some time ago and that there's probably been further improvements made to the platform and therefore the results through, you know, the integration of these modern tools such as AI and computational modeling.

So then after you conducted your vetting process and gained a strong conviction in the company, what was the outcome? Well, I think the outcome was really just, you know, sitting down with them and explaining to them because a lot of these founders, they just don't, you know, they, I mean, the idea that, wow, we can go public and, you know, and so you have to sit down with the, with our co-founders and the scientists that created this and explain to them something that's very complicated and something that they're not familiar with at all.

And so you sit down with a cap table and you say, you're going to get this, we're going to get that. We're going to put this capital in. We're going to develop this company with you and, and move this thing forward, you know, and it's most challenging things we do is just also managing expectations of the, of our co-founders and what have you, because, you know, from their perspective, they're looking at and saying, you know, cell-based methods are stupid.

It'll never work, you know, and why does Ginkgo raise, you know, $2 billion and, you know, and, and we're saying, well, yeah, you know, Ginkgo did raise $2 billion, but, or they've raised more than that actually.

And, and it's worth a lot less today because, you know, you know, having more money doesn't always help. Matter of fact, it can be a, so that development process is, is, is always a challenge. In some cases where, you know, we're dealing with people that have, have built either venture-backed companies or, or, or public companies.

And they, they kind of, they tend to understand what we do a lot more easier and, and, and they can, you know, but it's, but it is tough, right? You, you, you work with the co-founders and you build a team and it's their baby.

It's their, you know, it's one of one for them. We're not, it's not the only company we're developing. And so that process gets, is always, and, and, you know, getting the right people in, and what have you, that is the difficult part of what we do as well.

And having the experience of having started lots of companies is, you know, is pretty critical. So. And so in terms of that first commercial focus, what aspects are you looking at? Because you not only want to drive value for the company, but also value from a shareholder's perspective.

Well, I think, you know, if you, if you took say a big market like biofuels, everybody's trying to figure out how, I wouldn't say everybody, you know, probably politically the whole biofuel, you know, market, at least in the U S is, is probably less popular than it was before last November.

Um, but it's still, it's still, it's still pretty big, um, you know, in Europe with SAF and, and, and, uh, what have you, you know, the, it's a, it's a difficult market because you need, you know, thousands or, you know, millions of, you know, pounds of, or tons of, uh, of enzymes.

Right. And so to scale that market, you know, you, you, it's a big, it's a big lift, but you look at it and you say, technically, and you say, wow, this could be the cheapest way to make biofuels. And so you, you might, um, sign a, a development agreement with, uh, with a large company that's super interested and actually create a lot of value.

And so if you look at other biofuel companies that were probably more early stage than they let on, but, um, but they've been able to, you know, attain sort of billion dollar values based on the promise that they could make SAF.

let's say, uh, so you could create a lot of value, even though it may take a while to get it to commercialization. And then you look at things like, um, nutraceuticals or pharmaceuticals, uh, those are relatively easy, you know, because we can make enough enzymes in our own facility to actually make enough drug or nutraceutical to where we could actually go into it.

You know, and not, you know, and not, not take very long to get to some commercial production, but those markets aren't, you know, there aren't, you know, aren't as well developed. And so it's really balancing where do you, where do you, you know, spend your time and effort, not to mention, you know, you've got, you know, the government funding certain things and, um, you know, and, and so if you get grant funding to go to biofuels, well, let's, let's keep moving the biofuels forward, you know, if, if, if we can get it funded.

And so there's a lot of those priorities that, that, uh, have to be weighed. And it's obviously it's the biggest discussion we have in our board meetings, which is, all right, where are we focusing our, our skills? Cause we have a, we have limited resources as far as people is concerned that understand how this works.

So we better be very, very good about where we spend our time, our time and resources. So we're out. You know, doing business development, we're getting lots of ideas from lots of chemical companies or, or, uh, you know, drug companies, et cetera.

But, you know, we need to work on things that are value creating, not just things, you know, even if they'll pay us to develop it, uh, we, we still want to be working on things that are going to have the impact, you know, sooner rather than later.

So, you know, I think it leads us to things where we don't need to make, you know, crazy amounts of, of enzymes and cofactors to be able to produce it. And so that kind of leads you to nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals.

You previously mentioned the company's patents and intellectual property. So how is X-Azimes planning to evolve this portfolio in the future? Well, the good news when you're early, it's easier to get good IP. And so, um, it's when you're late that it's tougher.

And so, um, you know, we have the ability to not only when we're creating new chemicals, which we can do in the pharma, pharma and nutraceutical space, we can get what they call composition matter patents, which are kind of the Holy grail in that space, where if you find you invent a new chemical and it works or a new drug, it works that you kind of own it.

Um, we also own, methods of manufacturing with our approach with enzymes. So we can, we can own those as well because nobody else is really, I would say nobody, virtually nobody else is really focused on making these things cell free.

So pretty much wherever we focus, we're going to get valuable IP method perspective. The use, a lot of times we're going to probably have to, you know, maybe somebody else's come up with an idea of, Hey, we could use this to treat this disease or whatever.

Um, and we may not get those uses because we're focused on how do you make it as opposed to where do you use it? Um, and so, you know, that IP, we might partner with other folks and what have you that have figured out that maybe you could use this plant, you know, based chemical to treat something.

So you, you end up, you know, either working with them. Manufacturing, manufacturing, but, um, but, um, but, you know, the key is, is that we want to make stuff that's hard for other people, you know, uh, and where we can make it better, cheaper, you know, et cetera.

And usually we'll own plenty of IP around that. We have some core fundamental IP that, you know, you want to be able to recycle enzymes and, and, and cofactors and make that, uh, process efficient. And we have some, we have some IP around how to do that.

That's kind of fundamental to what we do. And I think we'll develop, you know, we'll continue to develop some more of that fundamental IP. Um, and so, yeah, it's, it's, I wouldn't say it's completely greenfield, but it's pretty greenfield.

And so that when we discover that we can make something, it's pretty easy for us to get a pretty good IP. Yeah. And so this process of expanding X-design's IP portfolio is supported by MDB Capital's, uh, patent best platform.

Yeah. And so whenever a new idea comes up, we can quickly assess the landscape and see, you know, did somebody else, you know, what's everybody doing in that space and then create a strategy based on that.

So, you know, very few companies have that capability, very few small companies. Even large companies, frankly, uh, have a process to do that very effectively. And I would say that's a core, um, it's a core skill set that we bring to all of our companies, which is let's not waste our time working on something where it's, you know, there's, you know, we're either going to be infringing on someone else's IP or we can't get any important IP that keeps people away from competing with us.

So that's able to be assessed pretty darn quickly, which is important because some companies will waste a lot of time trying to figure that out. And, you know, we can do that in a matter of days or weeks to figure it out.

Yeah. You know, that's a really important factor to consider because having such a robust IP portfolio as the first mover in this emerging space really strengthens X-design's advantage and creates difficult barriers of entry for competitors.

And also the fact that X-design's has access to specialized patent attorneys who can realize and derive actual economic value for these patents. Cause I know that roughly 90% of the patents actually have no worth or real market applications.

And I think that, you know, it's probably higher than 90, it's probably 95 or 98%. Um, and I think it's, I think it's just, it's just born out of, you know, scientists that do work. And they patent their work and they patent their work and the patent attorneys don't scrutinize it.

You know, they do their work before they, you know, they, they, they spend a lot of time doing work on stuff that they shouldn't be working on. And so then that leads to bad patent claims, um, because they have to go very, very narrow, um, to get a patent.

And, um, or, you know, sometimes what's even worse is there are sometimes where patent attorneys, write the claims, write the claims narrow so that they can get the claims issued fast and not have to spend much time getting a patent.

And that's even, that's even worse, but we see both, you know, with things that come across our desk is that, um, they're either working in an area where they can't get any valuable IP because it's going to be too narrow because it's too crowded already.

Um, or they, they could have gotten broader IP and they didn't get it. They didn't hire the right patent attorney. So, uh, what are some of the near term inflection points for the company? Well, I think with X-Simes, it's really about what's the product, you know, um, you know, what products are we going to commercialize and why is that important? And so I think that the company's close to being able to talk about those products.

Um, and as people understand that these products could be significant products and that we create value around those products, I think that's the connection. It's, you know, you take it out of the realm of being a technology platform to being, you know, practical where we're, we're actually launching products that, that people are going to want.

Yeah. Well, it'd be great to see the first commercial deal when it lands and that'll be a good stage to value the company and also the assets in which it generates and spins off. So before we finish off here, I just want to get a picture of the global impact that the platform could have.

You know, the whole promise of Synbio was limited resources, you know, uh, how do you create new and poor, you know, chemicals that are based upon, you know, green resources as opposed to non green resources, right? And how do you produce them more energy efficiently with less pollution, et cetera.

And that was the promise of Synbio. And I think, you know, we're, we're going to be able to deliver on that. And I think that that's, that's an important aspect of it. I think the second aspect of it, uh, is that we're going to create new chemical entities that would normally take way too long to develop with either traditional synthetic chemistry or traditional cell-based biology, where there's kind of no way to get there super fast or super cost efficiently.

So the impact it has on RD in the sense that we can, we can very quickly figure out if we can make something, which, uh, with traditional synthetic chemistry and traditional cell-based Synbio, it takes too long.

So you don't even start. And so we might be able to create whole new classes of chemicals very quickly from a research perspective. that really, you know, that really speeds the whole R&D process. And, uh, so that's an exciting aspect of what we do that, uh, like I said, we're, I think we're going to announce a product that literally took us a few weeks from idea to actually making it that's unheard of in any other area.

And so I can't quite weigh what the impact of that is going to be. Uh, uh, that, that, that could be, uh, really kind of a major aspect of what we're doing. So yeah, I would say those two are the primary, uh, um, uh, the primary impacts of sort of the global economy, if you will.

Yeah. Well, I'm really excited to see eXoZymes usher in this transformational shift in the chemical manufacturing industry. And, uh, I'm really excited to be a long-term shareholder and, uh, witness the company's progression over the coming years.

Uh, so as we finish off here, are there any final points that you think are worth covering? No, I think. You know, what, what I found in launching these big ideas, if you will, is that it's just, you know, you, uh, what happens is, is that, you know, you, uh, what happens is, is that, you know, you climb a wall of worry and doubt until it becomes obvious.

And, and most people don't have the time, energy to really understand the foundations of the science. They just want to know, okay, what are we making here? Why does it matter? Right. And so I think that eXoZymes is, is kind of at a great point now because we're going to, you know, we've had to really focus our efforts.

And I think we're, you know, hopefully on the, on the, on the doorstep of being able to, you know, really talk about what we're doing. Talk about some products that are, that are, that are meaningful and impactful.

Yeah. Well, thank you, Chris, for taking the time to jump on here and answer some questions. Uh, I'd like to remind listeners to head over to my company report and, uh, look at that document as there's a lot more details about the company and what they're achieving.

But, uh, yeah. Thanks, Chris. Thanks for jumping on. Sure thing.

Slack Capital interview: Chris Marlett, Chairman of the Board