A Candid Conversation between Roger Tripathi and Alejandro de las Casas Pérez

On this journey to explore ambitious and innovative BioAg businesses, I am inspired by the passion driving these companies to create meaningful change. Engaging with leaders and sharing insights with our global audience has been rewarding. My recent visits to
Kimitec and MAAVI, highlighted their impressive work. Kimitec is a true example of young entrepreneurs and passionate innovators.

Alejandro de las Casas Pérez graduated from the University of Seville with a degree in pharmacy. Master’s degree in international commerce and MBA with agri-food specialty. Throughout his professional career, he has worked in the export department of Aceites del Sur, an international Spanish firm that is a market leader in the marketing of olive oil, as well as the Pierre Fabre pharmaceutical group.
In 2007, together with three other partners, he founded Kimitec, a biotechnology company focusing on the research and development of natural solutions for agriculture. He has overseen the company’s international expansion to over 90 countries and helped established four delegations in the US, Brazil, China, and Latin America. In recent years, he has overseen the strategic management of new lines of business, in addition to the company’s international management.

Roger: What are MAAVi and Kimitec? How do you distinguish between these two, and could you please provide a brief overview of each?

We established Kimitec in 2007. and it is the commercial part of MAAVi. We sell our products, biostimulants, biopesticides, probiotics, etc. in more than 80 different countries
under Kimtec brand. MAAVi is the research center for Kimitec and for third party companies. So MAAVi itself is the provider of the technology to Kimitec, where we develop all the products launched under Kimitec.

We created Kimitec with the vision to change the way food is produced worldwide. We want to transform agriculture by
developing natural solutions with the same level of efficacy as chemical ones. We are reaching 100,000 growers worldwide
using our own distribution network but given the tremendous MAAVi capabilities of innovation and developing products, we
created a different model. It is Open Innovation 360, i.e. opening it for third parties, companies, as a technological provider of natural solutions. That is why we have a strategic partnership with Bayer and are open to cooperating with other companies that demand all this natural solution, not only in the BioAg sector, but also in agri food industry in general.

Roger: Your production plant has a huge capacity. So, what is your plan to utilize the capacity?

This is the last part of the project, but it is critical in the research and commercialization of products here at MAAVi. For example, we do research in the laboratory, to get to the prototypes, but then we need to scale up and make tons of products to be
used in different parts of the world. We need to scale up the biotechnological processes that we are using here including the fermentation and destruction, pyrolysis, and hydrolysis. We have more than 160 million tons per year of capacity of the production. This is ambitious because this is the market that we want to reach not only as Kimitec Brand as but also with our third-party strategic alliance partners to take these solutions to millions of growers.

Roger: What is LINNA and is it also available to the industry like MAAVi?

LINNA is not only artificial intelligence, but so much more than what people are thinking. It is a platform or computational biology that includes AI. So, we are using machine learning, system biology, bioinformatics tools and are integrating all these in one platform. The aim of LINNA is to accelerate all the research process. So right, we have more than 150,000 natural molecules already new at LINNA. We have tons of data, more than 50TB of omics data, phenotype in transcriptomics, database of natural molecules, database of proteins of beans or whatever. We are making all the integration. We are capable of accelerating the timing of research, for example, a project that is 24 months, we can do it in less time with minimized failure.

In any project that we start right now, LINNA can provide 40 – 50% more initial candidates. Three years ago, we spent 10 or 12
months to generate these candidates, now it takes only two weeks. Moreover, all these candidates are capable of successfully becoming the lead. In the last project of Phytophthora, LINNA provided six candidates, of which two are directly killing the Phytophthora.

Roger: Is your information enough to make LINNA so powerful or do you also get data from outside?

We have an external database that already exists in the market. There are a bunch of natural molecules already available in there.
We also have a database of all the different proteins, different auto log, and different genes. All the scientific papers and related information is already in the LINNA, as well as all the omics data that we are producing at MAAVi during the last 15 years, that includes
phenotyping, transcriptomics, metabolomics, molecular profile and chemical analytics.
Then, we have three different models that we use. One model is ‘Mol Suggester’. For example, we start with Lepidoptera control or
herbicide. We know the chemical molecule that already has an efficacy against this pest. LINNA will identify similar molecules in nature
to this chemical to have this efficacy and will provide different candidates.
Another model is ‘Drug Discovery’ that is used to select the molecules that have desired effect in the plant by inhibiting a gene or
protein. Third is with the living microbes. We have a collection of different living microbes based on the genome. Then, there is a combination of these three. When we start a Project with all the existing and knowledge being generated at MAAVi and LINNA we are able
to provide a quick answer and with prototype for the project.

Roger: This is fantastic. In the future, we can offer products as effective as traditional ones, with quicker market entry if our
regulatory strength allows. You could have chosen simpler approaches for higher returns, but you embraced this challenge
due to your passion for sustainable agriculture. How do you reflect on this decision?
It is important at Kimitec how to do things and with whom. We need people to get involved in the company, in business and we
need people to feel the passion. We have an objective; we want to change the way the food is produced. We need all our team to be
committed, not only in the R&D part but in all the other departments, to really be identified with this purpose.

The complete video conversation can be found on the BAW Digest website.