Celebrating the turning points that define our current and alumni fellows’ journeys.
We rely on chemical processes to make everything from medicines, to fuels, to screens. These processes are the unseen engine of manufacturing, but they are also energy-intensive and vulnerable to supply chain disruptions.
Praio is doing what few others have in the biomanufacturing space: zeroing in on how cells convert chemicals and engineering artificial protocell structures that isolate this specific cell function.
Drop Praio's protocells into a biocatalytic process and the results are immediate—enzymes get an optimized environment, and the headaches of working with whole living cells disappear. The process becomes measurably more efficient, without overhauling existing workflows.
Companies hit a wall trying to scale enzymatic processes from lab to production. Enzyme engineering and cell-free catalysis can only get them so far. Praio's protocells act as an enabling layer on top of these methods—unlocking performance gains that weren't previously accessible.
Holkar entered the Activate Fellowship two years ago with a different vision. He thought Praio would be making bio-derived commodities itself—specifically, sustainable aviation fuel. But over the course of the fellowship, Holkar realized that instead of developing end products—a long, capital-intensive, and uncertain path—Praio could offer a versatile tool that would be useful today.
“We realized that the advantage of a platform technology is that you can enable an entire industry," he said. “We’ve moved to a ‘picks and shovels’ model as opposed to doing the mining ourselves, so to speak, while the ultimate vision—changing how we do chemical manufacturing in a nature-inspired way—remains the same.”
Now, Praio is distributing the first batch of its first product: the sample environment screening panel. This curated selection of 15 protocell catalyst formulations drops into biomanufacturing workflows (it only takes 20-30 minutes to set up with existing reactions) and then the results can be evaluated within a week.
Holkar compares it to a beer flight: customers sample the selection to find out which works best for them and then go from there, with Praio customizing formulations for them as a next step.
“The funny thing, in retrospect, is that I could have done this two years ago,” he said. “But that's not how that works—I had to go through that whole journey to now be able to do this.”
As Holkar graduates from the Activate Fellowship, we checked in with him to reflect on his journey, Praio’s pivot, and the exciting opportunities ahead for nature-inspired biomanufacturing.
Tell us more about the milestone you’re currently celebrating.
The milestone is this product actually touching people's hands. It's honestly as simple as that. In the synthetic biology space, that’s very hard to do.
We got the data late last year that gave us the conviction to go in this direction. We launched at the SynBioBeta conference in May (here’s what SynBioBeta wrote about us) and within a couple of weeks the screening panel was already in the hands of ten users.
It happened very fast. It made me realize that there's no real difference between setting the stage and taking the stage.
What is the potential impact of your artificial protocell innovation?
Initially it started with climate impact, and these processes still promise efficiency at lower temperatures and pressure, lowering emissions all around.
But I've realized that it's deeper than that because it can be modular. Because [our technology] is compact and low-cost, it enables distributed systems and access to chemistry where it didn’t exist before.
Because our technology is compact and low-cost, it enables access to chemistry where it didn’t exist before.
Let's say there is some place where there is a lack of medicine for whatever reason. We can provide a modular function to create the starting materials needed to make those medicines.
There’s the same potential for fuels, from ethanol to butanol to sustainable aviation fuel.
Think about how the supply of many critical chemicals is concentrated in different geographies. Ultimately, being able to manufacture chemicals in a distributed fashion could bring stability to supply chains overall, reducing conflict, improving local resilience, and creating local jobs. Our vision is that widespread adoption of our product can drive a systems change from within.
Ultimately, being able to manufacture chemicals in a distributed fashion could bring stability to supply chains overall… Our vision is that widespread adoption of our product can drive a systems change from within.
How have you personally grown over the past two years?
I’ve gone through multiple growth cycles, and I have been made more emotionally intelligent for sure. My EQ has skyrocketed.
I have been made more emotionally intelligent for sure. My EQ has skyrocketed.
As a solo founder, you are pushing a frontier, and you're trying to push it at a fast pace. I realized that if I want to operate on another level, I have to continuously break down my internal systems and rebuild them, and that’s what allows me to scale.
I have a great executive coach who’s changed how I see things. She got me into reading self-help books, which I never did before. Not just self-help, but on topics all the way from emotional intelligence to social intelligence to systems thinking to body language.
One book, The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker, says fear and pain are a signal. For example, you’re not fearing public speaking itself but being ostracized and ultimately rejected by society.
Understanding this has allowed me to distance myself a little bit and observe things from a third-person perspective—really stepping back to notice where the anxiety and fear and pain are coming from and addressing that thing, not the imagined consequence. I think that has been the real driver for Praio’s progress in the last few months.
Before I tried to push, push, push from a place of anxiety, but it doesn't work. It's not sustainable.
In what ways was the Activate Fellowship different from what you expected?
What was unexpected and great? The community. The amount of growth I just mentioned is because of the peers, mentors, and so on who collectively have decades worth of experience.
The amount of growth I just mentioned is because of the peers, mentors, and so on who collectively have decades worth of experience.
I also never expected to be held to such high standards by the Activate Berkeley staff. I'm glad to have been held to those standards, because it meant there was actual belief that I could achieve them.
Lastly, I didn't expect I would learn so much from different contexts. For example, you might wonder what a biotech company could learn from a thermal storage company—a lot, apparently. Because all problems at the end of the day are people problems and all solutions are also people solutions, and how you navigate all of that has nothing to do with the actual details of your technology.
Who are you looking to connect with next?
Everyone should reach out to me. As for customers—anyone who has hit a wall scaling up or intensifying their cell-free enzymatic process, or even if they are trying to express an enzyme in a host and they can't, anyone who’s trying to move to cell-free, or anyone trying to make a new complex product that requires enzymes.
Investors, non-profits, anyone on the academic side, please also reach out.
As for potential team members, I’d tell anyone who's interested in working on this that it's a very exciting area. It's highly interdisciplinary at the intersection of material science, synthetic biology, and chemical manufacturing. We are going to need driven, talented folks who want their work to mean something and have a positive impact.