This week at Future Food Tech, Marine Biologics will showcase its technology—a platform that digitally maps the biochemistry of seaweed and its properties – which the company claims has created what is the world’s first programmable biomass.
According to the company, its proprietary cheminformatics platform, MacroLink, maps the molecular compositions of seaweed and stabilizes them into customizable, liquid-based macroalgae solutions called SuperCrudes. SuperCrudes, which are liquefied blends derived from seaweed harvested from specific geographic locations, are analyzed to document their mineral, protein, and carbohydrate compositions. This process allows Marine Biologics to benchmark each product similarly to how oil refineries grade petroleum based on extraction origin.
The company was founded by former crypto industry executive Patrick Griffin, who told Wired he transitioned from crypto to building a platform that could digitally understand seaweed after a surfing accident caused him to reevaluate his priorities.
Ironically, the accident reignited his enthusiasm for the ocean. Griffin recognized a gap in the climate resiliency market concerning fundamental building materials. Even if all other global climate resiliency efforts—such as vehicle electrification and renewable energy investments—were successful, products would still be largely built upon plastics or other petroleum-based materials.
“The chemicals and materials that we use today are, by and large, built on petroleum,” Griffin says. “It’s the last piece of the puzzle you’ll really have to chip away at to make a significant impact.”
Griffin believes his company can substantially reduce the costs and variability traditionally associated with bio-based sourcing by standardizing seaweed extracts into reliable and predictable ingredients.
The broader macro-trend of computational biology is one we’ve been following closely here at The Spoon. Examples include using AI to accelerate pathways toward gene-edited seafood or tracking startups like Shiru, which aim to build food input discovery engines by mapping food’s biological building blocks. Marine Biologics’ technology is particularly intriguing because it closely connects to a specific natural biomass that has previously struggled to gain traction in consumer products—both food and otherwise—due to limited understanding and internal expertise within larger CPG brands.
With this coming-out party for its Macrolink platform, the California-based startup is hoping to change all that, at the same time becoming both a formulation platform as well as a provider of inputs (SuperCrudes) to CPG brands looking for more sustainable inputs.
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