A venture investor who splits his time between the United States and Belgium, Jean-Jacques Degroof holds a PhD in management from MIT. Jean-Jacques Degroof stays up to date on the latest innovations in the scientific and business world. One initiative that caught his attention is the synthetic palm oil replacement Palmless, which was created by three fellow MIT alumni.
MIT classmates David Heller, Shara Ticku, and Harry McNamara created this synthetic palm oil in 2016 while struggling to come up with a business plan for a final class project. Through their brainstorming sessions, they began discussing the environmental problems associated with palm plantations in various countries. After a little research, the team discovered the issue was even worse than they imaged, as plantations commonly employ slash-and-burn strategies that ravage native forests and produce massive greenhouse gas emissions. Today, their classroom project has evolved into C16 Biosciences, a company that uses highly sustainable oil-producing yeast and synthetic biological processing to manufacture a sustainable alternative to palm oil. It distributes this palm oil alternative under the consumer-facing brand name Palmless.
