A dive into community, DAO's, and decentralised science at ValleyDAO
December 8, 2022

“Nature has existed for billions of years and is the most efficient system ever conceived. Everything that is created is eventually degraded and converted into something entirely different. If we can start to redesign our manufacturing processes to mimic this circular system, we could redesign the way we sustain our civilisations”.

What is a DAO? 

DAO stands for Decentralised Autonomous Organisation which refers to the unique way in which organisations leverage the power of community to govern and collaborate. The term was coined in 2016 referring to a community of people with a shared common goal. The first use-case for a DAO was investment clubs where members would pool their capital to collectively invest in projects. Later, they were established in gaming, decentralised finance and arts and media in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This sparked a revolution on how organisations could be created and structured, and in ValleyDAO’s case, rethinking how synthetic biology research is commercialised. 

One of the technologies we work with is the intellectual property non-fungible token (IP-NFT) developed by Molecule. It's no secret that many fortunes have been made through the auction of NFTs, however, these are usually centred around creative arts (e.g. Digital Artwork, Film and Music). As such, the value of these NFTs is subjective and can vary massively - contributing to the high volatility of blockchain markets. The IP-NFT is a way to digitise real-world assets such as technologies, IP and data by putting them on the blockchain. In addition, putting IP contracts on-chain gives them an unprecedented scale of liquidity, allowing them to be easily sub-licensed, transferred and/or fractionalised (for shared ownership) using smart contracts that are digital, automated and eliminates third party risk. We believe this will go a long way to accelerating the growth of the bioeconomy, increasing the rate of innovation by making synbio research easier to fund, licence and monetise.

Is the adoption of decentralised science impeded by digitisation? (i.e. cryptocurrency, blockchain, Web3, etc)? The terminology alone can sound intimidating (to me) so it makes me wonder if user-friendliness is a challenge? 

Web3 is a hidden layer. We have all these benefits for our community, but don’t want Web3 to hold everyone back, and in the DAO universe this can be a hurdle for people. Much like the internet, no one wonders how a website's code is structured, they just care about the value it offers - for example, Amazon which provides quick and easy purchases. Similarly, we show people how great the ValleyDAO ecosystem is, keeping web3 as a hidden layer that simply facilitates the work we do.

We engage with people much like any other organisation but will compensate contributors with cryptocurrency (i.e. future $GROW tokens). The $GROW-token is ValleyDAO’s future governance token that will be used to vote on e.g. which research projects we fund and to whom we sub-license the resulting IP to. We aim to release the token in early April later this year through a fair auction process. Individuals who believe in the mission of ValleyDAO will be able to buy the token and become a decision-making citizen of the community. Vice-versa, if somebody would like to give up their decision-making power and opt-out of ValleyDAO, they will be able to sell their tokens. Additionally, our community is multinational which means we aren’t restricted by geographical borders. This brings in talent from all around the world whilst simultaneously lowering the barriers of entry. With this we can work on an issue impacting millions of people across the globe. 

As synbio finds its place in the world, how do you envisage ValleyDAO shaping this?

In the short-term - we already have a couple projects in the works. One with Imperial College and one with Denmark Technical University. Those are quite far in our deal flow process and are finalising investment decks to work out exactly how they will be funded. But we are actively looking for more research projects. In our first raise we hope to fund five or six of those, with about $250,000 each, and show the value we have as an organisation. 

In the longer run, we hope to become a vehicle that helps people get funding to the right areas of research and carry them through to market when the time comes to maximise their impact. The way in which we are doing that is different, and we feel that is our strength, differentiating us from traditional VC funds which are profit-focused rather than impact-focused. The two are not always correlated. Hence, we see ourselves being impact-driven right from the start to make sure our technologies reach the people that need them.

ValleyDAO is always going to grow and evolve in new and unexpected ways. That’s the magic of our community - different people might join and bring something new along with them. It is my responsibility as community manager to make sure that anyone who wants to contribute and help out finds ValleyDAO a safe space to do that. 

What type of research projects is ValleyDAO most interested in?

1. Circular economy based projects are of particular interest as there is huge potential in terms of climate change. 

2. Platform technologies which improve biodesign, such as CRISPR tools to make genome editing easier, are also of great interest. We are currently consulting with one project in potentially developing new cell lines for cultured meat. One thing to note in the field of lab-grown meat is that the technology is there, but the infrastructure is holding it back. So, we also want to invest in technologies which can lower the barriers for scale-up. 

3. Similarly, there is a lot of open source software for computer aided design of biosystems. However, we want to help create one which is widely used, user friendly and intuitive. There is potential in collecting data to help align projects and make processes more efficient as a whole. 

4. Anything that allows us to substitute our chemical and industrial processes with much cleaner and efficient biological alternatives is also of interest to us. Green chemistry and bioenergy haven’t had the breakthrough we need yet. Phycobloom is one example of a synbio company in this space with great potential, but they still have many hurdles to overcome. ValleyDAO is actively supporting both academic researchers and early stage companies in developing their technologies - to help bring them through all stages of the development process. 

As synbio finds its place in the world, how do you envisage ValleyDAO shaping this?

In the short-term - we already have a couple projects in the works. One with Imperial College and one with Denmark Technical University. Those are quite far in our deal flow process and are finalising investment decks to work out exactly how they will be funded. But we are actively looking for more research projects. In our first raise we hope to fund five or six of those, with about $250,000 each, and show the value we have as an organisation. 

In the longer run, we hope to become a vehicle that helps people get funding to the right areas of research and carry them through to market when the time comes to maximise their impact. The way in which we are doing that is different, and we feel that is our strength, differentiating us from traditional VC funds which are profit-focused rather than impact-focused. The two are not always correlated. Hence, we see ourselves being impact-driven right from the start, rather than our technologies not reaching the people that need them.

ValleyDAO is always going to grow and evolve in new and unexpected ways. That’s the magic of our community - different people might join and bring something new along with them. It is my responsibility as community manager to make sure that anyone who wants to contribute and help out finds ValleyDAO a safe space to do that. 

How did you get involved in ValleyDAO? 

My journey started after Catalyse. I was doing research at the time and thinking about commercialisation, barriers of entry and some of the inefficiencies of academia in delivering impact to people. There is lots of money going into it but translation, in terms of impact outside of the lab, is poor. I wanted to have an impact on people’s lives, specifically in the context of climate change and sustainability. 

After exploring the concept of a DAO and the Web3 space I started to write my own manifesto. I thought it would be great to apply it to synbio. Shortly after, I spoke to one of my course colleagues about it, and that is how I discovered Albert was doing something very similar at ValleyDAO. We organised a call and it was clear our values were perfectly aligned. 

Speaking of Catalyse, do you see ValleyDAO aligning with programmes like these, and do you recommend any others? 

Relationships and partnerships with these programmes ties in with how we can maximise our impact. We are a large community with lots of people chiming in. But what is really valuable is the exponential effect of networks. We can connect people who have extensive networks of their own. This expands the value of what we can provide our community. 

Partnerships with research institutions, synbio networks (such as SynBioUK), accelerators and incubator programmes are important to us too. They allow us to provide as much support as we can to maximise our impact as a community, and the impact of start-ups we want to spinout and incubate. 

Regarding recommendations for accelerators - Nucleate is one to have on the radar. They are a very friendly, buzzing community run by volunteers. Secondly, for those interested in climate and sustainability, it is worth being aware of Carbon 13 (based in Cambridge) which I was also on. They are passionate about all things greentech and see a huge potential and promise in bio-based solutions. The same goes for Entrepreneur First (EF) and Zinc, which both help build companies tackling threats to the climate and biodiversity. Finally, InitiatorVC has millions to support postgraduate level students in entrepreneurship. 25% of US-based unicorns were started up from universities, so there is a lot of underutilised value in students' innovation.

What are you most excited about in the future of synthetic biology and biotech?

I’m particularly interested in 3rd generation biofuels. The impact there is massive. Not just as fuels, but also as a source of crude oil alternatives. For example, valorising biomass in a way similar to the way crude oil has been valorised. Many of our medicines, chemicals, plastics and fuels come from oil - that’s why it’s so hard to get rid of. 

I think people like Just Stop Oil have a loud voice and positive mission, but we can’t just stop using oil without a viable alternative because society would collapse. I see third generation biofuels as providing that alternative. However, there are lots of technical and economical challenges to overcome and make it more competitive. 

If a student/researcher has a start-up idea or technology that they’d like to spin out say in biofuels, how do they take the idea through ValleyDAO?

We have a research application form on our website. The key thing to know is that the application is straightforward. It's nothing like a grant application. It's much easier, much faster and much simpler to submit.

I also recommend you reach out and have a chat with us first (our email is research@valleydao.bio).

Alternatively, join our discord, introduce yourself, say what you're working on and what support you’re looking for. One of our community members will be in touch about the next steps and set up a call with our core team. 

What’s next for ValleyDAO?

We’re currently gearing up for our Public Token Launch in Q2 of 2023, where we’ll be making the $GROW token available to purchase to everyone. $GROW can be purchased via the public auction, or earned through contribution to our workgroups and ultimately helping to achieve ValleyDAO’s mission. There’s lots of work to do in terms of community building and marketing until then and we need all the help we can get! If you’d be interested in getting involved in this then I highly recommend you reach out. It’ll give you an inside perspective on the DAO and how we operate, as well as giving you the chance to directly earn your share of the network and have a say in the future of Synthetic Biology. 

You can reach Morgan at: morgan@valleydao.bio