Matías Muchnick, NotCo: Building The Future of Food From Chile, Ep 119

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-size: 24pt;">Matías Muchnick, NotCo: Building The Future of Food From Chile, Ep 119</span><br /> <br /></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Matías Muchnick left the investment banking world in pursuit of a solution that would bring sustainability to the broken food industry. He could not have predicted that a couple of years later he would be training an algorithm to understand humans’ taste preferences to create a plant-based mayonnaise that would appeal to the mass market. </span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In 2015, Matías cofounded NotCo, a food tech company that is using AI to take animals out of the equation in the production of milk, cheese, eggs, and meat. Just eight months after launching their first product in 2017, NotCo achieved 8% market share of the total mayo category in Chile in the first stores they launched in, a country that has ranked third in mayo consumption per capita in the world.</span></p> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I sat down with Matías to talk about his experience in the investment banking world, starting a vegan food startup in 2012 and, ultimately, his decision to leave the company. We also discuss his transformative experience in the US where he connected with his current co-founders, then getting accepted into IndieBio, and eventually raising money from Kaszek Ventures and Jeff Bezos. Matías also talks about his most recent round of funding and preparations for launching in the US.</span></p> <h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">“R&D in the food industry was operating on coal”</span></h3> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Inspired by other entrepreneurs’ stories, Matías left his job as an investment banker and started thinking about what he wanted to do next. He had always been curious about the food industry but didn’t fully understand it. As a finance major, he likened it to the subprime crisis of 2008, where there was a disconnect between companies and customers who wer