Boosting Sustainability: Scientist turned businesswoman Andee Wallace co-founded a business that aids in augmenting sustainable food production
By Lauryl Gonzalez, Contributing Writer
Andee Wallace is the co-founder and CEO of Robigo, a biotech company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company’s focus is in finding ways to improve how the world grows its food. Launched in 2021, it offers a suite of microbial treatments to improve plant health, agricultural productivity, and sustainability. It has developed the treatments from a platform technology of programmable, CRISPR-enabled microbes that protect crops from disease with unrivaled specificity and efficacy. While no two days are ever the same, she typically spends part of it building out an understanding of the business and is charged with mapping out how the company reaches customers. Her business partner and Robigo’s co-founder Jai Padmakumar, who focuses on developing the science for the technology is a great business partner to Andee as they have complimentary skills.
Growing up in her hometown of Bend, Oregon she has always been interested in anything that she could make with her hands. She said anything tangible made sense- which is why she enjoys spending time in the lab.
When she was an undergraduate student at Stanford, she took a class on synthetic biology, where the Professor spoke about a vision that synthetic biology has- engineering cells. This piqued her curiosity and was the driving factor in studying biomaterials and trying to engineer cells. Wallace received her B.S. in bioengineering and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
When she was starting out in biotech, she felt that there weren’t many women she could lean on or look to for mentorship. Although this is changing, and she encourages women to try different things and meet different people, which could give women the opportunity to find a mentor or sponsor who wants to see them succeed and grow, she tries to be a role model to younger girls and women interested in coming into the field.
Outside of work, the 31-year-old is an avid rock climber who has visited some prominent rock-climbing locations and can be seen climbing inside the gym or outside in New Hampshire when she’s not working. We had the opportunity to catch up with Wallace and learn more about her journey in launching and growing Robigo.
Q: Have you ever faced any hurdles or challenges because you're a woman, either trying to get into your position or while having your position at all?
A: Yes, I've experienced some (challenges). For example, some men not wanting to be managed by a fairly young woman or hearing comments about me being in engineering because I am a woman. This is, unfortunately something that we face. But more recently, since starting this business, I have been pleasantly surprised by how supportive people have been to me as a young female founder and really want to see me succeed. But I do think that there is a growing community of people who recognize that it's a problem and want to take steps to support women as they move through this journey. And it's just a matter of finding those people and then really fostering relationships to make sure that you surround yourself with people who want the best for you.
Q: What is one of the biggest challenges you faced when you first started the business, and how did you tackle them?
A: One of our first obstacles to being a biotech company was in the startup phase. Since we use synthetic biology to make our microbes, we needed a space to do our work and find funding for it. Thankfully in Boston, where we are located, there are a lot of incubator lap spaces for startups. We were fortunate enough to be part of the MIT network and be really plugged into the Boston area so that we were able to get the funding that we needed to get the lab space and hire our scientists.
Q: What are some of the milestones that you're most proud of so far and why?
A: First, from a technology perspective, to say the beginning of 2021, when we started the company, we were starting with just an idea about technology that we were confident would work. But it was very much just an idea. Within eight months, we were able to build a prototype system and prove that this technology worked in a lab setting. Since then, we’ve been able to show that our technology is effective at controlling disease in plants in a lab setting. Lastly would be the team we have built- they are all equally excited about our mission as we are.
Q: What are some of the aspects that you enjoy about your work?
A: On a day-to-day basis, I enjoy that every day is different. It’s fun to have a lot of things going on across all areas of the business. I think being able to drive the business forward is really rewarding and keeps me on my toes because there's so much to do that every day is very interesting to go to work and tackle different problems. Bigger picture, I’d say what we’re working on right now is pretty exciting. I am a very big believer that the field of synthetic biology and genetic engineering really will change the future. I think we're seeing that happen in the medical field with the development of cell therapies. It's really changing how we treat diseases we previously couldn't treat. And I think when we look at the future of agriculture, I think we've seen pretty stagnant innovation across the agriculture industry within the crop treatment space. We're really due for a big sort of boom or revolution of how we're treating our crops and treating them with alternatives to the traditional chemicals that we've been putting on our fields for 50 to 100 years. So, I'm really excited about the future that we're building in terms of bringing engineering microbes to the world, into the world of agriculture.
Lauryl Gonzalez is pursuing her bachelor of science degree at California State University Monterey Bay, (CSUMB), in Business Administration concentrating in marketing, and minoring in Spanish. Lauryl is an intern at From Farms to Incubators.