{"id":690535,"date":"2025-09-17T16:20:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T13:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/terra-oleos-oil-producing-microbes-could-replace-destructive-palm-oil-plantations\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T16:20:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T13:20:24","slug":"terra-oleos-oil-producing-microbes-could-replace-destructive-palm-oil-plantations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/terra-oleos-oil-producing-microbes-could-replace-destructive-palm-oil-plantations\/","title":{"rendered":"Terra Oleo\u2019s oil-producing microbes could replace destructive palm oil plantations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When most kids rebel against their families, they might become a ski bum, join a band, or go to art school. Shen Ming Lee decided to start a company.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up in the conventional palm oil industry,\u201d Lee told TechCrunch. \u201cMy family\u2019s business is one of the top producers in the palm oil space. And so I grew up a little bit \u2014 I have to admit \u2014ashamed of what my family does.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palm oil has come to dominate the market for vegetable oils, with the raw ingredient and its derivatives app<\/a>earing in everything from snack foods and cosmetics to pharmaceuticals and biofuels. But along the way, it has deforested<\/a> vast swaths of the tropics, especially in Southeast Asia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The germ of Lee\u2019s startup, Terra Oleo<\/a>, emerged in 2022 when she met co-founder Boon Uranukul, who, as a doctoral candidate at MIT, had developed microbes that could produce building blocks of plastics using agricultural waste.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really had this desire to build something that was maybe going to build on my family\u2019s legacy, but in a way that was more in line with my values as a Gen Z, sustainability-leading person,\u201d Lee said. \u201cWe got thinking about what we could do differently, matching his expertise with my connections and strategic network.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Singapore-based startup has been operating in stealth for nearly two years to develop microbes that can transform agricultural waste into a variety of oils.<\/p>\n

Terra Oleo has raised $3.1 million from ADB Ventures, Better Bite Ventures, Elev8.vc, The Radical Fund, a strategic corporate investor from the palm oil industry, and other investors, the startup exclusively told TechCrunch. Lee and Uranukul are also part of this year\u2019s Breakthrough Energy Fellows cohort.<\/p>\n

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Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t|<\/span>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 27-29, 2025<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"Terra
Terra Oleo co-founders (from left): Min Hao Wong, PhD, Shen Ming Lee, and Boon Uranukul, PhD.<\/span>Image Credits:<\/strong>Terra Oleo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Palm oil can be refined into dozens of derivatives, so Lee and Uranukul mapped them to determine where to begin. \u201cWhat are the most high value ones? But also technologically, what\u2019s easier for us to tackle and lower hanging fruit?\u201d Lee said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s the illusion that crude palm oil is the end all be all,\u201d she said, adding that the raw ingredient is a \u201cvery low margin commodity.\u201d Instead, they decided to skip straight to higher-value products, including cocoa butter and speciality oils used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.<\/p>\n

To make those oils, the company selected three yeast species based on the microbes\u2019 abilities to produce certain oils when fed with organic waste, including from agriculture and biodiesel production. It then used genetic and metabolic engineering<\/a> to boost and tune their ability to produce certain fats and triglycerides.<\/p>\n

Currently, the company is still in the lab, producing grams of oil at a time. But Lee said that Terra Oleo plans to use the funding to produce kilograms worth of the stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Already, Terra Oleo can produce oils for the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries at costs far less than what they sell for. That\u2019s mostly because the startup\u2019s microbes produce the right chemical from the start, eliminating the need for pricey refining.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at upwards of 80% margins for some of these specialty oleochemicals because they\u2019re really expensive to produce conventionally,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n

Hitting the scale needed to replace significant amounts of palm oil won\u2019t be easy. Last season, the world produced nearly 79 million metric tons, according<\/a> to the USDA, though the market hasn\u2019t grown significantly in the past six years.<\/p>\n

For Lee, that\u2019s an opportunity to show existing palm oil producers that maybe there\u2019s another path.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to change from palm oil to other sources overnight,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s so prevalent, it\u2019s such a versatile ingredient that I think it\u2019s going to be a slow transition where we\u2019re working with the industry to get to that diversified production mix that we want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our Technology<\/a><\/span> category.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When most kids rebel against their families, they might become a ski bum, join a band, or go to art school. Shen Ming Lee decided to start a company. \u201cI grew up in the conventional palm oil industry,\u201d Lee told TechCrunch. \u201cMy family\u2019s business is one of the top producers in the palm oil space….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":690536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/terra-oleo-oils.jpeg?resize=1200,880","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[158712,157003,77143,61594,74839,156407,39165],"class_list":["post-690535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-adb-ventures","tag-breakthrough-energy","tag-climate","tag-exclusive","tag-fundraising","tag-microbes","tag-yeast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}