December 25, 2025 • 6 mins
Australia is emerging as a serious biotech player, backed by world-class universities, grant funding, and a growing venture ecosystem. Michael Thompson speaks with Stefan von Imhof, co-founder of Alts.co, about why the local biotech scene is gaining momentum, and what that looks like in practice, from a company selling cultured meat in Australia, to one that allows drug testing on living human tissue.
This is Fear & Greed's summer series - all-new short episodes every day, with regular news back from January 12. All information is general in nature. If you want to invest, we recommend you visit a financial advisor who can tailor investments to your needs.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Fear and Greed summer series. I'm Michael
Thompson and today Australia is home to a pretty amazing
biotechnology space. These are innovative companies doing some remarkable things.
As always, this is general information only. You need to
get advice Taylor to you before making investment decisions. Stefan
von him Off is the co founder of alternative investing
(00:24):
community fund Alts dot Co. Stefan, welcome back to Fear
and Greed.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Biotech and Australia we are emerging as a biotech powerhouse.
Why what is it that's about the Australian economy or
the support for startups that's really helping us kind of
get noticed in this space.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
A couple of things. First and foremost, we have excellent
universities here right, which means we have world class researchers
and scientists' that's where it all starts, you know, number one.
So that's definitely one big point.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'd say.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Another is that we have a deep culture of government
grant funding, right whereas like in a market like the US,
there's actually not a ton of US government grants. Most
of the scientific grants that are done through the private sector,
which has its pros and its cons. But one thing's
for sure, there's no question that Australia's government grant funding
(01:18):
has helped biotech companies here tremendously. There's also a strong
engineering culture, you know. I mean, this is a where
a smart society, where a wealthy society. And this all
ends itself very well to risky but potentially lucrative areas
of science such as biotech.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Okay, let's look at a couple of examples, because I
know throughout the course of twenty twenty five you've visited
a few of them. VOW I think is really interesting.
Vow it became through this year the first company legally
allowed to sell cultured meat in Australia. Cultured meat is
(01:55):
not fake meat, is it. There is a very distinct difference.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Don't call it fake me or the CEO is going
to come after both of.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Us understood, no, it did, I will scratch that from
my voicab.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well. It's interesting though, because I think that there's a
lot of confusion over what this stuff is called and
how it works. So to be clear, fake meat would
be something like you know, you know, like tofu based meat,
or or or plant based meat or seed based meat
or something like that is not actual meat. What VAL's doing.
On the other hand, this is actual meat cells. This
is basically sell farming. They call it cultured meat, and
(02:28):
so their culture Japanese quail foi gras has become kind
of like one of their flagship dishes. But it's actual
it's actual animal cells, just cultured. Big difference.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, okay, and the demand for it is it's the
right time for a company like this as people are
kind of looking for alternatives to basically killing animals for food.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I think. So, I mean, look, these guys got a
big start actually in Singapore, which you may or may
not know, has two things like really going forward. Number
one has an incredible high end dining culture. I mean
we all love, uh love that about Singapore. But what
Singapore also has is a real problem where they can't
produce enough food in the country to feed everybody, so
(03:14):
they import most of their food and they're always looking
for solutions exactly like what Val provides. So VAU really
got their foothold through through Singapore, and then, like you said,
just recently, Australia uh granted them the right to become
the first company to sell cultured meat in restaurants and
(03:35):
you know, all over Australia. So look, I've had it
a couple of times. I love it. I would I
would call it like a It's kind of like, how
would I explain it. It's it's like a high end pataie.
It's not what you'd expect. It's not as like chewy
and like stringy as as you know, what you'd expect
from meat or protein. But man, it's delicious. It's a
(03:55):
lot softer. Yeah, I would call it kind of like
a very high end patae.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Another one that you have visited the sea in Ventia
Life Science. What did they do? This is an interesting company.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
These guys are interesting and a little under the radar.
I really like these guys a lot. That these guys
are printing living human tissue at nano leader precision. What
this does is it allows other companies and researchers to
test cancer drugs and other medications on actual living tissue.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
See.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
The problem is if you're doing everything in a petri dish,
that's not really the right environment to test a cancer
drug for a million reasons. But what they provide is
basically the proper environment. It's basically the closest thing you
can do to getting testing on humans without testing on
actual humans. So that's basically the business that they're in.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Okay, I'm curious here you mentioned at the stat that
there is there's good government grants, there's good government support
for companies that are working in this space. We've got
really good universities, so there's kind of great minds going
into this and often a lot of collaboration between universities
and companies in this space. Is the end goal for
(05:14):
all of these because we know that we've seen with say,
pharmaceutical companies, the road to making money can be a
very very long one and a lot of bumps along
the way, a lot of hoops you've got to jump
through with a lot of these startups within the biotech space.
Is the goal to make money or is it to
make a difference, particularly when you've got kind of government support,
(05:35):
universities collaborating. Is it still a commercial operation or is
it something more altruistic there?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I would say that as much as I would love
to answer and say it doesn't matter if you make money,
it's all for the sake of improving humanity. Unfortunately that's
not the case, right. I Mean, these are private companies
we're talking about. They need to make money eventually, but
what really can help them on that journey is a
strong funding infrastructure, and Australia definitely has that both in
(06:06):
government and then also with venture capitalist firms like Blackbird
and others that are willing to fund the really tricky
but really impactful, important and hopefully potentially lucrative companies like
vown and venture that are out there today.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Okay, so it might be a case of could do both,
could make money and make a difference. That's the goal, man,
That's the holy grail, all right, Stefan, thank you for
talking to Fear and Great summer series.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Thanks Michael.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
That was to find vond him off from alts dot Co.
Don't forget to hit follow on the podcast. New episodes
every day during our summer series. I'm Michael Thompson and
this is Fear and Great
Welcome to the Fear and Greed summer series. I'm Michael
Thompson and today Australia is home to a pretty amazing
biotechnology space. These are innovative companies doing some remarkable things.
As always, this is general information only. You need to
get advice Taylor to you before making investment decisions. Stefan
von him Off is the co founder of alternative investing
(00:24):
community fund Alts dot Co. Stefan, welcome back to Fear
and Greed.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Biotech and Australia we are emerging as a biotech powerhouse.
Why what is it that's about the Australian economy or
the support for startups that's really helping us kind of
get noticed in this space.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
A couple of things. First and foremost, we have excellent
universities here right, which means we have world class researchers
and scientists' that's where it all starts, you know, number one.
So that's definitely one big point.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'd say.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Another is that we have a deep culture of government
grant funding, right whereas like in a market like the US,
there's actually not a ton of US government grants. Most
of the scientific grants that are done through the private sector,
which has its pros and its cons. But one thing's
for sure, there's no question that Australia's government grant funding
(01:18):
has helped biotech companies here tremendously. There's also a strong
engineering culture, you know. I mean, this is a where
a smart society, where a wealthy society. And this all
ends itself very well to risky but potentially lucrative areas
of science such as biotech.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Okay, let's look at a couple of examples, because I
know throughout the course of twenty twenty five you've visited
a few of them. VOW I think is really interesting.
Vow it became through this year the first company legally
allowed to sell cultured meat in Australia. Cultured meat is
(01:55):
not fake meat, is it. There is a very distinct difference.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Don't call it fake me or the CEO is going
to come after both of.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Us understood, no, it did, I will scratch that from
my voicab.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well. It's interesting though, because I think that there's a
lot of confusion over what this stuff is called and
how it works. So to be clear, fake meat would
be something like you know, you know, like tofu based meat,
or or or plant based meat or seed based meat
or something like that is not actual meat. What VAL's doing.
On the other hand, this is actual meat cells. This
is basically sell farming. They call it cultured meat, and
(02:28):
so their culture Japanese quail foi gras has become kind
of like one of their flagship dishes. But it's actual
it's actual animal cells, just cultured. Big difference.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, okay, and the demand for it is it's the
right time for a company like this as people are
kind of looking for alternatives to basically killing animals for food.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I think. So, I mean, look, these guys got a
big start actually in Singapore, which you may or may
not know, has two things like really going forward. Number
one has an incredible high end dining culture. I mean
we all love, uh love that about Singapore. But what
Singapore also has is a real problem where they can't
produce enough food in the country to feed everybody, so
(03:14):
they import most of their food and they're always looking
for solutions exactly like what Val provides. So VAU really
got their foothold through through Singapore, and then, like you said,
just recently, Australia uh granted them the right to become
the first company to sell cultured meat in restaurants and
(03:35):
you know, all over Australia. So look, I've had it
a couple of times. I love it. I would I
would call it like a It's kind of like, how
would I explain it. It's it's like a high end pataie.
It's not what you'd expect. It's not as like chewy
and like stringy as as you know, what you'd expect
from meat or protein. But man, it's delicious. It's a
(03:55):
lot softer. Yeah, I would call it kind of like
a very high end patae.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Another one that you have visited the sea in Ventia
Life Science. What did they do? This is an interesting company.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
These guys are interesting and a little under the radar.
I really like these guys a lot. That these guys
are printing living human tissue at nano leader precision. What
this does is it allows other companies and researchers to
test cancer drugs and other medications on actual living tissue.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
See.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
The problem is if you're doing everything in a petri dish,
that's not really the right environment to test a cancer
drug for a million reasons. But what they provide is
basically the proper environment. It's basically the closest thing you
can do to getting testing on humans without testing on
actual humans. So that's basically the business that they're in.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Okay, I'm curious here you mentioned at the stat that
there is there's good government grants, there's good government support
for companies that are working in this space. We've got
really good universities, so there's kind of great minds going
into this and often a lot of collaboration between universities
and companies in this space. Is the end goal for
(05:14):
all of these because we know that we've seen with say,
pharmaceutical companies, the road to making money can be a
very very long one and a lot of bumps along
the way, a lot of hoops you've got to jump
through with a lot of these startups within the biotech space.
Is the goal to make money or is it to
make a difference, particularly when you've got kind of government support,
(05:35):
universities collaborating. Is it still a commercial operation or is
it something more altruistic there?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I would say that as much as I would love
to answer and say it doesn't matter if you make money,
it's all for the sake of improving humanity. Unfortunately that's
not the case, right. I Mean, these are private companies
we're talking about. They need to make money eventually, but
what really can help them on that journey is a
strong funding infrastructure, and Australia definitely has that both in
(06:06):
government and then also with venture capitalist firms like Blackbird
and others that are willing to fund the really tricky
but really impactful, important and hopefully potentially lucrative companies like
vown and venture that are out there today.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Okay, so it might be a case of could do both,
could make money and make a difference. That's the goal, man,
That's the holy grail, all right, Stefan, thank you for
talking to Fear and Great summer series.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Thanks Michael.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
That was to find vond him off from alts dot Co.
Don't forget to hit follow on the podcast. New episodes
every day during our summer series. I'm Michael Thompson and
this is Fear and Great
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