Ten Lives
S22
Active
Decarbonizing food proteins with AI.
We optimize microbial factories to produce proteins at the lowest possible cost and environmental impact. Our mission is to make sustainable protein sources a cost-viable alternative, for all members of the family.
Jobs at Ten Lives
San Francisco, CA, US / Remote
$150K - $225K
Any (new grads ok)
Active Founders
Vicki Mo, Founder
Vicki has experience ranging from finetuning SOTA machine learning models to shipping both digital and physical products. In 2015, she was the USA and French Div 1 National Champion in the sport of epee fencing. Vicki received her MS in Computer Science - Machine Learning from Columbia University.
Ruby Yu, Founder
Ruby has spent the past decade investigating gene expression in organisms ranging from yeast to humans, and she is an industry-leading expert on high-throughput genetic screens for machine learning. She received both her BA and her PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University.
Her extra-laboratorial activities include circus arts, climbing, and cat-sitting.
Company Launches
tl;dr: We are making cat food with animal protein, without the animals - bringing the first sustainable, healthy cat option to the $45b cat food market. By supercharging precision fermentation with ML, we can finally produce clean, carnivore-friendly protein at cat food prices. Pre-order our snack pack (20% off with YCMEOW) or sign up for premium cat content (updates).
Hi friends! We’re Ruby, Vicki, Sera🐱, and Nori🐱, and we’re Ten Lives.
The problem:
- Animal meat is unsustainable for the planet. A fifth of the world’s meat is consumed by pets, contributing to both emissions and animal cruelty.
- A plant-based diet is unhealthy for cats. Cats are obligate carnivores that eat more animal protein than almost any other mammal.
- Alternative animal protein sources are currently unaffordable. Even at theoretical cost minimums, lab-grown meat is 10-100x more expensive than premium cat food.
Our solution:
- 🌎 Our sustainable animal protein is made without killing or harming a single animal, while at low impact to the planet.
- 🦁 High-protein cat food made for carnivores (no plant protein!). Our protein is identical to what cats eat in the wild.
- 💸 We update the millennia-old science of fermentation with machine learning to produce animal protein at cat food prices. Our cost-optimizing platform technology can be seamlessly applied to any protein we produce in the future.
Why we care / the potential impact:
1 ton of animal protein replaced = 5,000 animal lives saved.
Healthily replacing animal protein for all cats = CO2 equivalent of 27 million cars off the road.
We aim to undercut the price of chicken by 2027.
To support our cause:
- **Pre-order** to get earliest access to our first product - snacks for cats. Use the code YCMEOW to get 20% off of the snack pack (limited quantities available).
- Sign up for only-good-cat-content updates.
Thanks!