Well as corporations around the world commit to reduce their
carbon footprint and fight climate change. One company is
taking initiative by restoring the past colossal, the world's
first and only the extinction company has raised more than
$200 million with the goal of resurrecting extinct animals like
the wooly mammoth, the dodo bird and yes,
the Tasmanian tiger and they want to do this all
within the next decade. So it's not too far
off. A new docuseries on its work is coming
from the filmmaker of the popular Netflix film, my
octopus teacher. So joining me now is Ben Lamb
co-founder and Ceo of Colossal. Uh Ben, welcome
and congrats. Yeah, thanks so much for having
me. It's been a crazy last few years on
this the extinction journey. And as you mentioned,
James Reed, and that announcement is pretty exciting.
It's creating a lot of buzz. I gotta tell
you, I loved my octopus teacher on Netflix and
uh what you're doing is absolutely fascinating. So I'm
sure this will be a great, a great docuseries
as well, but you made the nod there.
Your company is just a few years old. How
is this docuseries gonna unveil more about your unique mission
. Put it in your words, anytime you do
something that's big and bold and especially science like we're
doing with the extinction. I, I think that
you have a responsibility to be authentic and transparent and
I'll tell you, I've, I've never filmed before
and never been on a movie or a docuseries.
There's nothing more transparent than cameras around all the time
and we were very fortunate. Uh We had about
uh you know, 200 plus production companies call us
. But James, just with his history with Mack
to his teacher and with Chimp Empire, he's just
so authentic that we felt that he could maintain a
true independence and be the right collaborator. So it's
definitely really interesting to be going from being a very
private person to being filmed all the time. We
just felt it was important for transparency and to,
you know, really chronicle this for science. What
are your goals at Colossal Ben and what's the timeline
to reach them? Yeah. So we really have
two goals and people love to only talk about the
extinction, which we love. And that's what,
you know, we, we are the only de
extinction uh company. But all of the technologies that
we make on the path to the wooly mammoth,
the Tasmanian tiger and the dodo have massive applications to
conservation. And so all those technologies we want to
give those, you know, latest R and Ds
uh of, of those technologies directly to conservation.
So we, we think we're about, you know
, uh 2028 is what our goal is for our
first mammoth calves. I will tell you that we
are still on track. We set that goal 2.5
years ago. We still feel 100% confident in that
. You know, I will say that, you
know, mammoths and elephants having 22 month gestations,
it's highly likely that will not be our first animal
. You know, we're not willing to make any
other uh commitments yet, but I don't believe the
mammoth would be the first animal to come back from
extinction. But I am more excited even about the
application that we're seeing today with some of the conservation
efforts that we're doing, you know, with the
Northern White Rhino rescue project that we're working on with
Dr Thomas Hildebrand and some of the work we're doing
with Save the Elephants in our elephant, orphanage partner
in Botswana. So I'm excited about today with the
conservation applications, but we aren't that far away from
the extinction tomorrow. It is fascinating. So let's
talk more about the extinction. I think that's kind
of what did put your company on the map though
, obviously, you have, you have other conservation
efforts and initiatives here as you explained to me.
But in terms of the extinction, I mean,
what are the ethical concerns that you're trying to grapple
with as you make this a reality. No,
it's such an important question. So we work very
closely with some of the top scientific minds in the
world. We work with some of the top conservation
partners in the world like, you know, as
I mentioned, save the Elephants, Leonardo Dicaprio's rewilded
Foundation, Interna International Elephant Foundation. So listening to
them and understanding, you know, some of the
challenge of, you know, saving these species and
rewilding them is really important. And all of our
projects, we're working to ril the species back into
their original habitat. So that takes local government,
federal government, indigenous people groups, private landowners,
uh different, you know, lobbyist groups, they
have different perspectives. So we're finding that we spend
almost as much time working with those communities uh in
, in in a transparent fashion to hopefully get to
rewilding the species as we do on the science.
And so the ethics are absolutely fundamental uh to,
to how we view these projects because if you can
bring these species back but not put them back in
their natural habitat in collaboration with the existing ecosystem and
with all of these uh different stakeholders, then you've
really failed. There's no real point. How does
this impact the environment? Yeah, it's a great
question. All of our projects. We do extensive
ecological modeling. So for example, in Tasmania,
we're working on the Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger, it
was removed, it was hunted to extinction in 1990
in 1936 by folks uh that were funded by the
Australian government and nothing has replaced that in that environment
as an apex predator. And so when apex predators
lose uh or are lost from that ecosystem, it
starts to degrade and you start to have weak and
sick and other animals start to proliferate and the entire
ecosystem gets out of balance, very similar to what
we've seen with the reintroduction of wolves back in the
Yellowstone. And now it's completely rebalanced. The ecosystem
nature likes when these keystone megafauna species are back in
their natural habitat. Same thing with the mammoth as
we look to rewind, you know, not just
the mammoth but potentially other Arctic uh uh Pleistocene species
back into the Arctic. We could build a lush
ecosystem and change the degraded ecosystem that currently exists that
has very little biodiversity. It is fascinating. So
let's talk about the money that you've raised to do
this. Ben, what are the funds that you
have to work with? So, we've raised$225
million today. Um You know, that gives us
we're in a great cash position. You know,
we're not really focused on revenue right now. We're
really just focused on the science and kind of the
breakthroughs in the application to conservation today. Uh We
have runway, you know, for years to come
without additional capital raise being a technology company and constantly
innovating technologies, we will raise more capital. Um
we're just not looking for it, uh, today
. Ok. Not looking for it today. Maybe
you don't need it. Uh, but in terms
of next steps, Ben, do you know when
the docuseries is gonna hit when people can watch it
? So, I don't come from Hollywood. So
, uh, you know, that's not up to
me that's up to James and team and then also
for distribution partners because at some point they'll work with
, you know, one of the big streamers on
, on, you know, when and where it'll
be available. I assume that the first season would
come out, you know, late 2025 maybe 2026
. But um that's just what I've been told,
but I, I'm not really, I, I
am just a part of it. I'm not really
, you know, driving it, what kind of
scientific superpower have you invested in at your company to
make this work? So, so de extinction is
a systems problem, right? You don't just solve
like computational biology like so like software and A I
, you don't just build like stem cell reprogramming,
like changing cells back into their naive state of stem
cells. And you don't just, you know,
take existing embryology kind of like what we see in
IBF in, in, in all these uh cutting
edge technologies for uh embryology, you actually have to
build the entire system. And we're seeing that a
lot of those actually have application to human health care
. So we actually spun out our last company,
our first company last year called Form Bio, which
is an A I driven computational biology software platform that
we actually had to build and leverage A I to
essentially assemble these ancient genomes and compare them to the
living relatives. Well, you know what's interesting about
that is that has direct application to the human genome
that has direct application to uh drug discovery and small
molecule design and uh you know, a AAA broader
even cancer research. So anything that we have that
, that, you know, we invent on the
way to the extinction in this system that we can
use to either help humans or help animals. You
know, we wanna make available to the world is
tourism. Uh something that you're considering, you know
, people pay to go as soon as they go
, they go on safaris. Can you imagine if
they could see an extinct animal? No, it's
a great question. We do think that eco tourism
will play a role at some time, right?
But you know, that's really in partnership with like
, you know, locals in, you know,
private landowners, indigenous people and governments. And so
when we, we're working very closely and we announced
our partnership with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, which is
the equivalent of like fish and wildlife here in the
United States, only for Mauritius. And the dodo
was iconic. And that's what most people know about
Mauritius, not during incredible beaches. Are amazing culture
and people, they so much about the dodo,
right? And so we do believe that Mauritian people
and the government will benefit from eco tourism over time
. But remember we first got to bring the animals
back in a healthy way and then we have to
put them back in the wild and make sure they're
sustainable. But I, I hope that, you
know, people will get to see these animals back
in their natural habitats, you know, over time
, what are the challenges that your company faces?
Uh I mean, where to start, right?
It's like, first of all, you have to
work with incredible people from all over the world,
not just on the science side of making this happen
, right? And that's software engineers, that's computational
biologists, that's in, that's uh uh geneticists and
, and, and, and embryologists and animal husbandry
groups. But then you have to work with,
you know, all these different folks that, you
know, have an equal say to this, like
the indigenous people groups and the governments and regulatory.
So we try to take a very inclusive collaborative approach
. That means we have spent a lot of time
, you know, in country with boots on the
ground and building trust and working with all these different
nations and these people groups. But there's just so
many, I I is really a federation of people
from all, you know, over the world.
I, I think that we're working right now with
60 academic scientists. Outside of the 140 we have
scientists at colossal. We work with 60 academic scientists
all over around the world at some of the top
universities as well. So it's very collaborative. But
you know, there's a lot of voices to be
heard and make sure that, you know, we're
trying to do things the most transparent and ethical way
on our path. All right, I'm looking forward
to this document. Then I got to tell you
, I it's going to be great. I'm excited
to see where your company goes from here. Join
us again with an update that's been LA co founder
and CEO of Colossal.