Social Impact Heroes Helping Our Planet: Why & How Leonardo Alvarez Of Protera Is Helping To Change Our World
An Interview With Martita Mestey
Nobody from the outside can help you make the calls that feel right. And more often, outside advice will be wrong. Trust your instincts.
As a part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Leonardo Alvarez.
Leonardo Álvarez is the Chief Executive Officer of Protera, an AI-driven startup designing and developing new proteins to enable a wide range of sustainable solutions, such as extending the shelf-life of food and replacing widely used chemical additives with natural alternatives.
Protera uses a proprietary artificial intelligence platform, madi™, to screen billions proteins and predict their properties. The platform can design functional proteins at a high speed and accuracy, that will serve as healthier and more sustainable ingredients.
Protera, which last year closed a Series A at $10M, is currently scaling-up its manufacturing process and validating its protein-based ingredients with several multinational companies.
Mr. Álvarez founded Protera in his early 20s alongside his colleague, now Chief Financial Officer, Francia Navarrete.
Thank you for joining us in this series. Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit how you grew up?
I grew up in Santiago. I became interested in computers and coding early on in my life and was encouraged by a close relative, who was a computer scientist.
In parallel to computers, I became curious about biology. My greatest Christmas gift when I was 8 was a microscope set. I would spend long hours sampling anything imaginable.
I struggled deciding what to pursue as a career, biology or computer sciences. But I decided for biotechnology engineering.
In my second year of university I met one of my mentors, who introduced me to bioinformatics, the perfect combination of programming and biology. I found it super exciting, and it pushed me to go more towards the “dry lab”, which is more on the computational side of protein engineering.
I always wanted to do something that would have a positive impact on society. I also felt I could make an impact on Chile’s Applied Sciences, and help create the possibility for science jobs in my country. I was worried when I started out, because most of my friends were amazing scientists, but unemployed due to the limited number of positions.
You are currently leading a social impact organization that is making a difference for our planet. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization are trying to change in our world today?
Our vision is to create a society that relies on sustainable alternatives to everything we consume on a daily basis, from food to construction materials. Right now, many of these are produced through chemical processes, which negatively impact the environment and human health.
We are convinced that biology is the way of the future, in a combined effort to grow better products using microbes and proteins.
At protera we leverage proteins, the most advanced tools nature has built over billions of years. We have developed an Artificial Intelligence platform to understand how they work, and then deploy them in better products for society.
We decided to start with food as it represents the perfect arena to demonstrate the impact of proteins. Food is fundamental to our society, and as we grow in numbers we need to ensure access to quality food and make sure we can distribute it everywhere.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
Over time, I developed a profound passion for understanding biology through computers and how that could help us discover new aspects of life and proteins specifically.
I have dreamt about a future where proteins are part of our everyday life. We could efficiently grow the materials to produce our clothes, the ingredients to make our food, and even the components of our phones.
I decided that just dreaming about this future was not enough. I needed to take action and start building it, together with many others who want to develop the same sustainable future.
Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest it. They don’t get up and just do it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and do it? What was that final trigger?
You start out being a bit naïve and very confident — genuinely believing that you can build something when you’re unsure how complicated the process is.
I don’t think you have one single Aha-moment. Things start to fit together slowly, and you need to remain open-minded to take on new insight.
At some point, I realized that the only way that I would get to do what I love the most was by building it myself. There was no single company in Chile combining Computational capacity with biology to create better products.
Globally, I found great companies using biology to produce proteins. Still, I felt that their application was limited and wondered why they were not working on unlocking proteins’ potential to change entire industries.
So I decided to start protera with my co-founder and be in the protein revolution’s driver seat.
Many people don’t know the steps to take to start a new organization. What are some of the things or steps you took to get your project started?
As first-time founders, we had no idea what was needed to build a company. When we started in Chile, we didn’t have anyone in our network with the experience of building a successful biotech company.
It was challenging. We focused on celebrating small milestones and started building from there. You always need to have the over-arching goal in mind, but you will quickly grow frustrated if you concentrate and realize that you have made little progress. It’s critical to remain passionate and to learn how to overcome frustrations.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
A time that I always remember is when we first moved to San Francisco from Chile.
We knew that it was challenging to get funding in Chile, so we started to look in the U.S.
We were selected as participants for a pitch competition in Mountain View at Microsoft. Since they didn’t pay for any travel, we had to ask for funding at the University and from family and friends. We managed to gather the money and traveled to Silicon Valley, hoping for the best. The level of innovation we experienced happening all around us was exciting.
We didn’t win the competition, but one of the judges — the Chief Scientific Officer of the biotech accelerator, Indie Bio — loved our company. After the pitch, he came to our booth and invited us to visit the lab in San Francisco. The day after we went there, they offered us a fantastic investment opportunity. It felt like something out of a movie. It dwarfed anything we had previously received in grants. Sure enough, we decided to relocate to the U.S in a couple of weeks.
None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?
My first mentor from the University: Daniel Almonacid. He got his Ph.D. in Cambridge, then a postdoc at UCSF. He returned from UCSF to Chile, bringing back all that excitement about building companies. He was the first to believe in me and the potential to create a company from Santiago. He pushed us to continue working on the company’s development.
The team from IndieBio, the accelerator in San Francisco, was also instrumental. We learned a great deal from them: Advancing past the lab stage to an established startup; better communicating the science to other people to create a movement; business development, and value creation.
Are there three things the community, society, or politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
From a societal perspective, I think sometimes we underestimate the power individuals have to inspire change, particularly to push companies to change the way they are doing things. Ultimately, consumers decide what products they will purchase. That’s powerful.
Once consumers make their demands clear, companies need to follow. They need to do something to address these demands, and I think we’re beginning to see this. Still, a more significant movement is necessary from both societies and the government.
The government needs to make sure that the products that companies like Protera and others are developing are safe to eat when it comes to new ingredients and new foods. It’s critical to demonstrate that products are safe and ensure the regulation process for these new products is clear.
The U.S. is doing a great job smoothing the process and nurturing communication between innovators, consumers, and regulators. It’s less clear in places like Europe or Latin America. It’s challenging to introduce new products due to unclear regulatory processes, which sometimes discourages innovation that could positively impact our society.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
We live in a moment where you can build a successful company around sustainability. There are multiple examples, especially in the food industry. And these started with very local and niche opportunities, such as the vegetarian-vegan community.
Now, we’re seeing that many consumers, who we call the flexitarians, are willing to change their diet for a more sustainable version of the products they eat. And there, you have a massive opportunity to build a successful business by selling a product that’s better for the environment. We know that plant-based products have a significantly lower footprint than animal-based products.
Suppose you look at fermented products, like the proteins we are developing. In that case, the carbon footprint and emissions are even lower than plant-based products. I think that’s a driving force for consumers — who prefer this type of product. That, in turn, generates a profit for the company.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
1- When bringing people to your company, focus much more on the fit with the vision rather than academic achievements:
You are building a movement, and at the beginning, you need people deeply passionate about creating the same vision.
2- Trust your guts!
There is nothing “magical” about a gut feeling. We can recognize specific patterns that emerge when we are profoundly involved in something. Still, it isn’t easy to articulate them clearly.
Nobody from the outside can help you make the calls that feel right. And more often, outside advice will be wrong. Trust your instincts.
3- Never compromise the vision:
Every company will need to pivot or adapt at some point. These are the most challenging moments for a founder. Everyone will have a “great opportunity” that you might be missing and should consider. But in the end, you need to be loyal to your vision and deepest passions; otherwise, you will regret every choice, no matter if the outcome was positive.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
Make a positive impact on the world around you, not just for money, but because in the end, there is nothing more satisfying or important than creating something that will make the world better off than when you found it. I think it’s a great privilege to create something that can change lives. This makes the hard work worth all the effort.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Social Impact Heroes Helping Our Planet: Why & How Leonardo Alvarez Of Protera Is Helping To Change… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.