Brett Cotten

Arda is a chemistry technology company transforming globally abundant waste & co-product streams into scalable, beautiful, animal-free & plastic-free polymers and biomaterials. Beginning with brewery & whisky spent grain into leather-like materials, and capable of so much more. Sign up to our newsletter at www.arda.bio

#1 Amazon New Release for Young Adult Science & Nature eBooks (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZY75Z7N) "Gene-trepreneur: Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset in STEM to Impact Sustainability" is a book about how Biotech + Entrepreneurship = Sustainability. It officially published with New Degree Press in November, 2019. The main goal of Gene-trepreneur is to bridge the gap between STEM and the entrepreneurial mindset for students and young professionals–to educate and inspire via founder stories, research, and actionable take-aways for how anyone can directly impact sustainability in the causes they care about. This book is my answer to how we cultivate the next generation of global problem-solvers, how we create tomorrow's Gene-trepreneurs. This book delves into a wide range of topics such as cell and plant-based proteins, microbially-produced ingredients, the plant / soil microbiome, biodiversity, genetic species conservation, and even a daily beverage staple for many people around the world: coffee. Companies Interviewed / Profiled: Mango Materials, Finless Foods, Impossible Foods, New Age Meats, Wild Earth, Perfect Day, Ginkgo Bioworks, Ecovative, Bolt Threads, Pembient, Revive & Restore, and more In addition to interviews, research, writing, and editing that comes with publishing a book: – Operated a successful pre-sell campaign with the publisher and pre-sold over $4K-worth of books before official launch – Learned effective branding and outreach methods to build audience – Delivered speaking events at the University of Cambridge

Entrepreneur First is a global talent investor / accelerator that is like Love Island mixed with The Apprentice. EF has helped build over 500 companies from scratch. There are over 3500 alumni worldwide along with a portfolio of companies valued at over $10bn.

Arkeon is converting CO2 into protein – amino acids & peptides.

Taught, facilitated, & brainstormed in Cambridge University's Alt Protein Society x The Good Food Institute Europe programme.

Climate-tech venture build sprint and community. #beondeck

As the Venture Associate on the Research, Design, and Build team, I ideated and shaped company concepts and viable execution paths overlaying them based on SME advice and market research (Venture Design & Building). Further involvement included assisting fundraising outreach and engagement, creation of investor materials such as LP decks, Private Placement Memorandum, Due Diligence Questionnaire, and liaising with a design team on branding materials.

Hired by alt protein / agtech VC client to conduct technical due diligence on a prospective investment – used my report to help proceed with a $3.5M allocation into a futuristic, highly sustainable protein production platform

Cambridge's newest health-tech accelerator investing £250k for a 6-month program. Startups can leverage Start Codon's key stakeholders including Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC), Babraham Bioscience Technologies (BBT), the Milner Thereaptuics Institute (MTI), and Roche / Genentech. Working under former Cambridge Epigenetix CEO and current CEO of Start Codon, Jason Mellad, conducting diligence and review of potential start-up investments, as well as maximizing opportunities to learn about all components surrounding life sciences VC. Simultaneously crafting my MBE thesis titled On Becoming an Impactful Bioenterprise-Builder: Implementing Branding and Investment Methodologies to Win in Biotech Venture Capital (...hopefully). Delving into difference in investment mindsets around topics like backing platform technologies vs. more singular asset endeavors, variation in investing across regions (US / UK / EU), and developing KPIs for predicting startup "success" within a reasonable amount of probability, amongst other aspects of biotech investment.

The MBE (at its core the MBA for biotech) is an integrated business, entrepreneurship, and biotechnology (pharma, med device, and agritech) course exploring the regulatory, research and development, partnership, scaling, financial, and other key aspects of commercializing life sciences innovations.

Combined scientific background with the study of entrepreneurship in order to best prepare for a career in technical innovation, business development, and investment, specifically centered around biotech.

A program delivered by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) via the University of Helsinki and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The course had teams work on new product development projects with the scope of involving companies like Strauss, Lidl, and Nestle.