Brightseed Co-Founder Sofia Elizondo breaks down what plant bioactives are, and how they're using the latest technology to study human's biological connections with plants.

Cheddar Innovates

Brightseed: Using A.I. to Understand Our Biological Connections to Plants

we know that plants play an important role in our health but we haven't yet unlocked the full potential of all of this with hitting compounds and plans that we never even studied until now. Bright seed is a company that collects data from plants to make connections between plants and human biology. Joining us now is Sophia Elizondo, co founder of Bright seed Sofia. Glad to have you on this morning. Can you just tell us a little bit more about your mission and then this amazing technology. Thanks for having me really happy to be here. Bright seed is a health company. We illuminate nature to restore human health because we really believe that nature is brimming with solutions and we built a technology platform called forger and it's an ai platform that discovers natural bio actives in plants. Um and then it predicts the impact that these bio actives can have for human health. So we validate all of these computational predictions and we bring to market products, medicines and ingredients all to improve human health. Exactly our plant bio actives and can you put into perspective just how understudy this area is? Yes. You know, plant bio actives are like the super power inside of plants. Um They are natural compounds that plants produce. They produce them to communicate with their environment and attract bees and repel pests but they're really powerful for humans. My favorite natural bio activist caffeine, it is a natural compound inside of the seed of a plant that when we take it produces a really a powerful effect that we can feel and actually natural bio actives are the active ingredient in medicines to their the active ingredient in aspirin in taxable for breast cancer and in hundreds of others. However, it's an area that is very under explored. There is um about tens of thousands or maybe 100,000 natural chemicals known to science, but there are millions of them out there. So it's called the dark matter of the plant kingdom. And it's the very first problem that bright seed solves. We have already mapped over two million of these compounds, increasing our visibility into the plant kingdom by 20 times. And and we feel really confident that we first need to see these building blocks of food as medicine so that we can then take them to market in ways that are optimal for both the ecosystem and for our health fascinating. And by the way, I don't think you're the only one who's favorite bio activist, caffeine. I join you in that as well. Um what are some of the biggest findings that your ai system has detected to date? You know, we started when we started the company, we wanted to focus on really challenging health problems. What are the biggest problems out there that pharma has not been able to solve that? There isn't a drug from the pharmaceutical industry that that addresses this and and it's one of them is in metabolic health in particular and fatty liver. So two billion people around the world suffer or are at risk from two of having a fatty liver and that's when our liver gets saturated with fat and cannot process or detox or blood or our body effectively and it happens when we eat a non ideal diet. Um Well forger has identified in only three months to compounds that address this issue. They're called N. F. T and N. C. T. In scientific literature. And we have published remarkable pre clinical studies on both the impact that these two compounds have on liver but also on weight management and importantly in gut health. And forger found these compounds in over 80 plant sources around the world, including really common plant sources like black pepper and like hemp holes and will take a hemp whole version of this ingredient to market this year and we're very excited about that. Well there does seem to be a decent amount of excitement or even support for bright seed bright side just raised $68 million dollars series B funding here. What are some of your plans with this round of funding and what potential our investors seeing in this space right now? You know, we uh we will continue to accelerate our discovery capabilities and the coverage of the natural world. We've only tapped the surface on that and with this round of funding we're excited to bring our discoveries to to market and and in the hands of consumers around the world because ai um and artificial intelligence is really interesting and our platform or forager is a really powerful platform, but it's only truly impactful when we can translate everything that it finds into real products that impact people's lives. And that's what we're going to focus on this capital that we've just raised. Our our investors call us the the Pharma Company of the 21st century and we believe that this is the beginning of a new paradigm for proactive health. You know, you you've been able to partner with some major organizations I think of an ocean spray for example, to help create some wellness products. What are some of the ways that you have worked with these companies, You know when we started Bright seed, we've always had health as our North Star and to truly impact the health of millions of people around the world, we need an ecosystem. Um and all of these companies that are working with Bright See today like ocean spray, like oh F I like the unknown or farm evite or the Gates Foundation, they recognize that they play a major role in health um and are part of this new health continuum with them, we work by providing access to foragers capabilities so that they can, you know, have an intelligent search through the natural world and discover plant bio actives that together we can bring to market with health as your North Star as you described it, when you look about the future for for the company, what's next for bright seed? You know, as long as I've lived, preventable chronic disease has been on the rise and we can be the first generation to see it decline. And that's what's next for bright seed. We want to enable proactive health by bringing to the world specific knowledge about these hero natural bio actives that are inside the plants in nature all around us. And what's next is to actually show up in consumers hands across many different product types to really make a difference in everyday life. Well, much luck on that effort and endeavor. It seems like one obviously that that we that is much needed right now. Sophia really appreciate your time. Sofia Elizondo, co founder of Bright Seed.