Wild Yeast Zoo - Demo Day Pitch

Wild Yeast Zoo

 

 

[Image appears of a drawing of a beer mug and liquid appears filling the mug, and text appears below: This is beer]

 

Narrator: This is beer.

 

[Image changes to show a drawing of a green yeast squiggles with hair eyes and legs jumping into view replacing the drawn mug, and text appears: Made with yeast]

 

Beer is made with yeast.

 

[Image changes to show a drawing of an open mouth with purple lips and a long purple and green dotted tongue wriggling off to the left side, and text appears: Gives beer those wonderful flavours aromas textures and mouthfeel]

 

Yeast is what gives beer those wonderful, flavours, aromas, textures and mouthfeel.

 

[Image changes to a drawing of balance scales with coloured yeast squiggles on top of each other on one side and a bottle, mugs and jug on the other side, and text appears: So the more types of yeast the more types of delicious beers]

 

So, the more types of yeast the more types of delicious beers.

 

[Image changes to show a drawing of leaves and plants with a pink yeast squiggle with legs peeking out from behind a leaf, and text appears: Yeast is alive and you can find it everywhere in the wild]

 

Yeast is alive and you can find it everywhere in the wild.

 

[Image changes to show a tiger tail lashing across the page and then the image changes to show a drawn picture of a zoo, and the camera pans in, and text appears: Like most wild animals it’s a lot easier to study them in a zoo.]

 

Like most wild animals it’s a lot easier to study them in a zoo.

 

[Image changes to Wild Yeast Zoo logo with coloured yeast squiggles that have eyes and legs, around the logo, and text appears: That’s what we do.]

 

That’s what we do.

 

[Image changes to show a drawing of pink yeast squiggle beside mushrooms and leaves being picked by a green gloved hand, and text appears: Yeast hunters or wyzards as we call them forage different strains from amongst Australia’s flora and fauna.]

 

Yeast hunters, or wyzards as we call them, forage different strains from amongst Australia’s flora and fauna.

 

[Image changes to a drawing of a cardboard box with a test tube of yeast being placed inside, and text appears: Then they send them to us]

 

Then they send them to us.

 

[Image changes to a drawing of a pink yeast squiggle with hair eyes and legs being graded with ticked boxes and levels, and text appears: We assess them and then add to our zoo”

 

We assess them and then add to our zoo.

 

[Image changes to a drawing of the world globe with beer mugs, jug, bottles and coloured yeast squiggles appearing around the globe, and text appears: So craft brewers from all over the globe can easily discover new and rare yeasts to use in their beers]

 

So, craft brewers from all over the globe can easily discover new and rare yeasts to use in their beers.

 

[Image changes to show a drawing of beer in a jumping glass, and text appears: But beer is just the beginning]

 

But beer is just the beginning.

 

[image changes to show drawings inside a nine box grid of a beer glass, burning lamp, croissant, medicine, vegetables, needle, wheat heads, sheep and bread, and text appears: Yeast is also used in many other food and biotech applications]

 

Yeast is also used in many other food and biotech applications.

 

[Image changes to show a drawing of the world globe encircled with each coloured yeast squiggle holding various yeast uses, and text appears: Making our yeasty little friends a key ingredient of a more sustainable future]

 

Making our yeasty little friends a key ingredient of a more sustainable future.

 

[Image changes to a drawing of the Wild Yeast Zoo logo surrounded by coloured yeast squiggles holding various uses for yeast, and texts appears: The Wild Yeast Zoo it’s the yeast we can do]

 

The Wild Yeast Zoo, it’s the yeast we can do.

 

[Image changes to show text on a white screen: www.wildyeastzoo.com]

 

[Image on screen changes to black with The University of Newcastle, Australia logo and text. Evan Gibbs enters the stage on the left and stands next to the screen]

 

[Image on screen changes to three headshots under the heading: The WYZards Conclave. Headshots are labeled left to right: Evan, Claudia, Ben]

 

Evan Gibbs:  Hi, I'm Evan and I'm a wyzard from the Wild Yeast zoo. I'm in charge of ideation and just generally being a bit of a firecracker. There's also Claudia. She's our chief yeast wrangler. And then Ben, our comms conjurer. We're building a library or, as we call it, a zoo of microbes able to solve problems that we need for specialised products moving towards a greener future.

 

[Image changes to animation of yeast with the text: Our yeasty friends can magic up much, much more than beer…]

 

As our video showed, yeast are an amazing resource. They can make beer and bread, but I bet you didn't know that 40% of your diet is already fermented. Yeast are the great degraders and through this process they can make precursors to tastes, cosmetics, medicines, fuels, industrial chemicals and the list goes on.

 

Each little yeast is like a separate chemical factory. These factories make the smells and flavours that we encounter in our everyday lives. And there are many millions of varieties.

 

[Image on screen changes to animated image of the world surrounded by breads, a microscope and other icons. Heading: Transforming Industries with Yeast Magic]

 

Currently, the market only uses a handful of microbes to produce many of the chemicals that we need. These yeasts were originally used to make beer. But you wouldn't expect an ice cream factory to make iPhones. So why do you think a beer yeast should be producing vaccines?

 

[Image on screen changes with a heading: Beating the Status Quo. On the left are logos for various companies, on the right is a three by three grid with various yeasts, the grid is labelled: Zoo]

 

Our zoo will be used in advanced manufacturing, where our yeasts are engineered to produce everything from fuels for cars to insulin and even flavours for ice creams. This method is not only sustainable but also scalable, offering an edge over the traditional extraction methods. We will take organisms straight from our zoo, evolved to make these specialised chemicals in nature and then introduce them to industry. Not only that, our wyzards have conjured up methods to enhance the yields of these products.

 

[Image on screen changes with heading: Different Yeast. Same Technology. Same Business Model. Underneath this is text in a circle: $2 Trillion. Global Total Addressable Market. To the right are three columns labelled Fermented Beverages, Biofuels, Flavour Houses]

 

The first market we're targeting is flavour houses. Looking at that unique Australian character from our unique Australian yeasts. Our medium term plan is to focus on biofuels and bio based chemicals, all the while still engaging with that fermented food and beverage industry. We are using different yeasts with bespoke solutions, but it's the same technology and the same business model across all of these segments. This represents a total addressable market of over $2 trillion.

 

[Image on screen changes to a graphic of intersecting circles. Heading: Who’s Who in The Zoo. Wild Yeast Zoo is in the middle of the circles, the outside circles have various company names in them]

 

Who's who in the zoo. This is going to be our competitors. But you know what? Each of these guys are using, once again, those same microbes. So what we're going to do is introduce our competitors to our yeast and turn them from competitors into customers.

 

[Image on screen changes to heading: Cultivate & Create Business Model. On the left of screen is text: Off the Shelf Organisms, Custom Solutions, Big Challenges & Big Problems. To the right is a box with text inside: Real Example]

 

So we're focusing on existing market players, to help improve their products and develop new ones both sustainably and economically. The wyzards are currently brewing new flavours for a kombucha company, a new detergent for use in hand soaps and oil producing yeast for those greasy needs. And we plan on doing that three ways. First, there's some off the shelf trademarked organisms that we can just give out to those customers, like flavour houses and fermented beverages. We've already got a customer for that. Second, there's tailored solutions with custom organisms for specific products. And thirdly, we're engaging in big problems in consortiums that that have large companies and governments looking for solutions like biofuels. We're also engaging in one of those right now.

 

[Image on screen changes to a timeline from 2022 to 2024 with heading: The WYZards Adventure]

 

We've started building our zoo with just over 500 yeasts and we've recently incorporated, right now the wyzards are working with companies with three products in the market.

 

[Image on screen changes to a timeline for 2025 with heading: The WYZard venture]

 

But the wyzard adventure continues. To this we need some funding to help drive the expansion of our zoo into the tens of thousands, and we want to further strengthen our IP policy, and we need to start regulatory compliance for our initial products.

 

[Image on screen changes to animations of yeasts, the Wild Yeast Zoo logo and text: Come meet the WYZards… it’s the yeast you can do! wyzards@wildyeastzoo.com]

 

So come and meet the wyzards from the Wild Yeast Zoo. It's the yeast you can do.

 

[Image on screen changes to a picture of the Wild Yeast Zoo team, a QR code and the logo for The University of Newcastle. Evan exits the stage on the left]