How one biotech startup is betting on cows and winning over investors

Equity

TechCrunch

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4.2 • 365 Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cow burps are a climate problem, and one startup wants to reprogram them. Hoofprint Biome is using enzymes to rewire the cow’s microbiome from the inside out, cutting methane production and improving feed efficiency along the way. The company just raised a $15 million Series A round from investors including Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, and they’re just getting started. Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Tim De Chant sat down with Kathryn Polkoff, co-founder and CEO of Hoofprint Biome, to talk through it all. Listen to the full episode to hear about: How enzymes and AI are helping fight climate change (seriously). What it takes to raise money for biotech in a sea of SaaS. Why thinking like a farmer, rather than a climate scientist, was Polkoff’s superpower. As she put it, “That’d be like if you were engineering a car but had never changed the engine — that’s where all the energy comes from.” The future of methane reduction and feed efficiency at scale. Equity will be back Friday with our weekly news roundup, so stay tuned. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. We’d also like to thank TechCrunch’s audience development team. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I made you think you was dream.
0:02.0	My name is Caden Sinclair.
0:04.0	Some people call us American royalty.
0:06.0	We were liars.
0:07.0	A new series on Prime Video.
0:09.0	We were happy. We wanted for nothing.
0:12.0	Based on the best-selling novel.
0:15.0	Something terrible happened last summer,
0:17.0	and I have no memory of what or who hurt me.
0:20.0	No one in my family will tell me.
0:22.7	When you're left for dead, you want answers.
0:25.2	We Will Liars. New series, watch now, only on Prime Video. Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of
0:46.4	startups. I'm Tim Deshaunt, and in this episode, we're bringing on industry experts to help us
0:51.1	explore trends shaping the tech world. Today, we're going deep into the world
0:55.1	of livestock, specifically cattle. Their burps are a big problem when it comes to climate change.
1:01.0	The methane in them is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Now, we have to get into
1:05.6	the weeds a bit, pun intended, before we can tackle investor interest. And trust me, there is
1:10.2	interest. Startups are lining up
1:12.1	with solutions. Some are using seaweed. Others are creating drugs to solve the problem. But today's
1:17.0	guest is taking a different approach. We're joined by Catherine Polkoff, co-founder and CEO of
1:21.3	Fiftprint Biome, a biotech startup that's using enzymes to reprogram a cow's microbiome from the
1:26.4	inside out. Catherine, welcome to the show.
	...

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