• BY BUG

  Participated · Seed · Jul 2024

  ByBug develops a platform that expresses recombinant proteins in genetically engineered black soldier fly (BSF) larvae as an alternative to precision fermentation. The company says this approach can lower upstream costs—claiming BSF rearing is 10–20× cheaper than microbial fermentation—due to cheaper feedstock, lower capex, and lower labor. ByBug operates an R&D center in Chile with a semi‑industrial BSF rearing plant and molecular biology lab, and has established a commercial office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its product pipeline includes unpurified high‑protein insect flour containing recombinant proteins and purified recombinant proteins; downstream processing and purification remain under development. The firm also plans to monetize byproducts such as animal‑feed biomass, frass fertilizer, and fatty acids for cosmetics. ByBug has two patent applications pending for a BSF strain transportation system and a genetic‑editing methodology for insects.

• Marco

  Participated · Seed · Jul 2021

  Marco is building an operating system for Latin American SME exporters engaged in cross-border trade, providing them with easier access to financing and operational support. The platform offers a suite of products including LLC creation, bookkeeping, banking, FX payouts, cargo insurance, and financing tools such as factoring and asset-based lending. Founded in 2020 by Jacob Shoihet and Peter D. Spradling, Marco is headquartered in Miami with additional offices in New York City and Montevideo, Uruguay. The company employs over 50 people across its offices. Marco has established itself as a key player in the trade finance sector serving historically underserved SMEs. It intends to use the funds from this round to further enhance its ESG efforts within the LatAm region. Marco provides a tech-enabled trade financing platform that acts as an operating system for SMEs engaged in trade across LatAm and the U.S. The company was founded in 2020 by Peter D. Spradling (COO) and Jacob Shoihet (CEO) and is based in Miami with offices in Montevideo and New York. Marco intends to use the funds to expand its trade finance platform and suite of trade services across target segments in the U.S. and Latin America, including Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru. The company reported rapid growth: it lent $100M last year, has financed over $254M with zero losses since inception, and saw 1,500%+ CAGR in funding between 2021 and 2022. Marco aims to fund $750M by the end of 2023. Marco Financial offers a tech-enabled risk assessment and factoring platform to provide working capital to small and medium exporters across Latin America. Its product underwrites lines of credit based on future potential and customer-provided data, shortening loan origination from over two months to about one week and enabling funding within 24 hours. Since launching its product in January 2020, Marco has processed thousands of invoices across 20 countries totaling more than $18 million and now lends as little as $25,000 per month up to $10 million. The company aims to simplify cross-border payments, improve risk assessment by productizing unstructured data, and enable large logistics providers to originate export financing. Marco was founded in 2019 and is based in Miami with offices in New York, Dallas and across Latin America. The company also announced senior hires including Prajwal Manalwar as chief product officer and named Sabrina Teichman chief growth officer (editor's note: as of September 2021, Sabrina Teichman no longer works for Marco Financial). Marco Financial is a tech-enabled financing platform that provides financing to small and medium-sized Latin American exporters selling to U.S. buyers. The company uses an innovative due diligence process that leverages real-time data to dynamically assess risk and mitigate capital loss. Marco intends to use the new capital to continue expanding operations and its business reach across the region. The company was founded in 2019 by Peter D. Spradling and Jacob Shoihet and is headquartered in Miami, FL, with offices in New York and across Latin America. The financing package includes both an equity component and a credit facility, indicating a mix of growth capital and lending capacity to support originations.

No current team members are available.