Benjamina Bollag

Uncommon is using ground-breaking cell technology to tackle the most pressing challenges to our health, starting with cultivated pork.

Founded by Benjamina Bollag and Dr. Ruth Faram as Higher Steaks, Uncommon is harnessing RNA technology to build complex proteins and fats packed full of authentic flavour and nutritional benefits, based on just a small sample of cells. This cuts down on water and land use that livestock require while doing away with the need for antibiotics, animal products, or toxic small molecules. 

Benjamina recently sat down with James Wise as part of the ‘What’s Next…’ podcast series, which you can listen to here.

What motivated you to found Uncommon?

I was brought up with a clear sense that health was the most important thing. My dad always said that nothing else matters if you’re not healthy. So, that has been a deeply ingrained value, and I always knew I wanted to work towards a healthier world.

I’ve been working on this cultivated meat idea since late 2017 when I was going through Entrepreneur First. The concept has been around since the 1970s, with the first patents going back to the 1980s. With a background in chemical engineering, the idea of cultivated meat presented the perfect overlap of where I can have the biggest impact on people’s health and can also see myself enjoying the everyday work of it in the long term.

The broader impact of cultivated meat really resonated: it can help slow down climate change by moving away from livestock, which requires an incredible amount of land and water usage, and also brings health benefits by moving away from antibiotic use, which is traditionally heavily used in meat production. And if our population develops antibiotic resistance then we lose our first line of defence for a healthier world. We have started with pork precisely because over a third of the world’s total antibiotics is used solely on pigs in China – cultivated pork can be such a game changer.

The promise of cultivated meat has been around for some time now, and there are several different approaches. What is Uncommon’s approach?

Based on Nobel Prize-winning findings and pioneering biomimicry, we make a small sample of cells, which we grow and then turn into muscle and fat. This then is mixed with different complex proteins and fats to make cultivated meat that are packed full of authentic flavour and nutritional benefits. And in our case, we’ve been working on bacon as a first product.

But actually, as we’ve developed this, we’ve realised that some of our technologies can have a wider impact by making therapeutics more affordable. From using our delivery method for RNA therapeutics to potentially using some of the liquids we use to culture cells in IPS therapies, we’re exploring several applications.

We seem to be coming to a moment of convergence with increased cultural awareness and acceptance of the need for cultured meat, technological breakthroughs, and regulatory support. Is scaling the next big challenge?

I’ve naively expected innovation to happen faster, and even as an industry, we’ve sometimes been too optimistic. As often is the case, the devil is in the detail from ensuring there are no issues in the supply chain to setting up facilities – these are all things that you need an experienced team to help navigate. These things just take time to build, so I do think it’ll be another three to five years before we see cultivated meat on a large scale in supermarkets.

The regulatory aspect is interesting, especially in the UK – we hope regulations stay as strict as they have been to avoid bad actors. However, assessments and processes happen quicker, which requires the right resources on the regulatory end. Regulatory approval in the UK is our priority alongside the US, but we are applying in multiple geographies and will see which one comes through first, and then we can scale up.

What has been your biggest learning so far in your Uncommon journey?

The milestones have obviously changed as we’ve grown, but resilience has been key. We talk a lot about being consciously resilient: understanding that it’s not always about pushing further but knowing when we need to reflect. Given the long tail that comes with being a deeptech startup, creative problem solving and resilience really are key. I knew I’d found the right co-founder in Ruth not only because she brings the biological expertise, but also because she brought the resilience to go through the highs and lows that come with a deeptech startup.

As a founder, there will be long weeks where you’ll have to push yourself a lot, but there’s been a learning curve as well to understand that, yes, you can have it all, but not all at the same time. So that means during those crazy weeks, I want to make sure that I leave my phone out of my bedroom room, that I still exercise and pick the right moments when I need to work those extra hours.

What has your fundraising experience been as a deeptech startup in Europe, raising money from US and European funds?

We reached out to over 800 investors – going from a broad focus to a narrower one to angel investors. It was a really iterative process. We had angel investors and then Sam Altman started a fund with his brother Max to invest in deeptech. So we applied for what was a similar process to Y Combinator, went through numerous rounds of kind of due diligence, and they ended up investing, which then made it a lot easier to attract more funding.

The US has historically been more open to deeptech and as a whole has a bigger risk appetite, but we have found it does come down to the fund as well. Government has actually played an interesting role: they came in quite helpful between rounds in the form of an Innovate UK investment, which really accelerated things.