The Google Maps of Microbial Fermentation Facilities: feat. Capacitor
December 20, 2022

What is Capacitor and what was your goal in creating it?

Capacitor s the first comprehensive and free database of microbial fermentation facilities worldwide. Our goal with Capacitor is to promote the growth of biomanufacturing by making it easier for synthetic biology companies to find the production resources they need to bring more biomanufactured products to market.

What can we find on the Capacitor platform?

• If you’re looking for microbial fermentation capacity, we invite you to visit our website: www.capacitor.bio!

• If you have microbial fermentation capacity to list we invite you to join us and add your facility to our database: www.capacitor.bio/facilities/new!

• & to read more about Capacitor, check out our blog post.

Have you received any feedback about Capacitor yet? Do you have any ideas for how you might expand the database in the future?

Yes - we’ve heard lots of positive feedback from folks on both the capacity-seeker side and capacity-provider side! The capacity-seekers are excited that there’s now a digital tool that houses this level of facility information in one central resource. The capacity-providers are excited for the increased exposure they’ll get from being listed in the tool. In the future, we’re thinking about expanding the feature set to best serve the needs of our users. This might mean adding new filtering options or broadening the technical scope beyond the microbial fermentation production value chain.

How does Capacitor fit into Synonym's overall goals for the biomanufacturing industry?

Synonym is accelerating the world’s biological future by developing, financing and building commercial-scale biomanufacturing facilities for startups to Fortune 500 companies. Based on industry analysis, we will need dozens of commercial-scale facilities to produce bioproducts in quantities that will allow them to reach cost parity with legacy, animal-derived and petroleum-based products. Building new fermentation capacity will take time and Synonym is working quickly to solve that problem. In parallel, we also want to find solutions that promote biomanufacturing right now and that’s why we’ve developed Capacitor. We hope that Capacitor will raise awareness around the capacity shortfall in biomanufacturing and catalyze increased investor, governmental and consumer interest in closing this infrastructure gap.

Where do you see biomanufacturing going in the next 10 years?

There’s a burgeoning ecosystem of companies using biology to produce the things we consume — from the food we eat to the materials we use to the energy powering our world. And it’s been really exciting to see the more and more biomanufactured products come to market over the last few quarters. As companies continue to improve their bioprocesses and more production capacity comes online, I think biology will become a default mode of production, helping drive decarbonization and other substantial environmental and societal impacts. Over time, I’d expect that biomanufatured products will become the standard, rather than the exception and that we’ll see biomanufacturing applied to many new industries.

What are some biomanufactured products you're excited about now?

There are so many good ones - it’s hard to pick just a few! I recently tried the bean-less Minus Cold Brew that just launched and was very impressed with the notes and taste overall. And I’m a big fan of Perfect Day’s Modern Kitchen chive cream cheese - they sell it at my local bagel shop and I will never pass up the opportunity to buy it. 

Final question - what are you most looking forward to in biotech/synbio?

I’m looking forward to living in a society that harnesses the full potential of biotechnology and biomanufacturing. We’re at a pivotal moment in time and there is so much opportunity ahead of us to accelerate the impending biorevolution. Biomanufacturing will not only improve on the products we already have by requiring far fewer carbon resources than products made with chemical synthesis or animal-agriculture, but will also create completely new and transformational products. I’m looking forward to the day when these products are ubiquitous, becoming natural parts of our everyday lives.