“Biology is so complex, it’s like the most complex piece of technology in the entire world,” said Carl-Emil Grøn. “There’s nothing that’s remotely close. You start from one cell and then you grow into a Michael Wolf who’s now hosting a podcast together with me. That is crazy when you think about it.”
When this former single-cell turned human podcaster caught up with the CEO of ReShape Biotech this past week on The Spoon Podcast, Grøn’s excitement over the miracle of biology and biotech was palpable. But he made it clear that wasn’t always the case. In fact, when he first saw his university friends building a tiny robot for a biotech professor, he told them it was a waste of time.
“I was sure this was not something anybody would need,” Grøn recalled. “But then I started getting a little bit curious about it.”
That curiosity eventually led him to co-found Reshape Biotech, a Copenhagen-based startup that’s automating the slow, manual processes still common in biological research. While new technologies like automation and AI have transformed fields like software and transportation, Grøn saw that many biotech labs were still stuck in the past.
“We have self-driving cars and AI tools that can do crazy things, but biotech workflows look kind of like 1990.”
Reshape’s platform combines robotics, computer vision, and machine learning to help food and biotech companies run hundreds of thousands of lab experiments. The ReShape system uses cameras to monitor petri dish experiments, running AI-powered image analysis on mold growth or bacterial reactions, and helping researchers rapidly test natural preservatives, food dyes, and more. This means research that once took months or years can now be done in days or weeks.
“We have this one company that used to do between like 800 and 1000 experiments per year,” Grøn said. “Whereas with our platform, they’re running more than 450 thousand every single year. So you get this like complete step change difference in how much you can actually do.”
That kind of increase in throughput is becoming more critical as food companies face new pressures, whether that’s from consumers demanding clean labels to a new administration looking to restrict artificial ingredients.
“Nowadays, they (food companies) are going to have to do it right,” he said. “When regulatory pressure comes to push, you have to do it.”
Grøn believes the companies that embrace AI and automation today will have a major advantage tomorrow.
“If we do this well, these companies will be set up to basically take the lead on developing new products in the future,” he said. “They will be the ones who have the data that’s necessary to make AI models that actually work.”
As a startup, Grøn says ReShape is focused on getting their tools into the hands of big players like Unilever and Nestlé, but long-term he has a broader vision, which is to open up the world of biotech data to help make companies big and small more productive.
“My dream, maybe one day, is to open source all of this data and just make it available to the world,” he said. “Because I do think the world needs something like this.”
Grøn was vague on when exactly that would happen, as he said first he has a few constituencies (like his investors) which he needs to serve first. But over the long term, he’s excited about the possibilities.
If you’d like to listen to my full conversation with Grøn, you can click play below, or find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
