Altered Carbon develops proprietary AI-driven biological platform technology in-house, then deploys it through exclusive field licences to focused spinout companies — each co-founded with a domain expert who holds majority equity.
Every spinout in the portfolio follows the same formation sequence. The platform is built first, the field is identified second, the company is formed with a domain-expert co-founder third, and the licence keeps the studio and the spinout cleanly separate from day one.
AI-driven biological design, protein engineering, and bioinformatics developed in-house. Validated experimentally before any company is formed against it.
A specific commercial domain — therapeutics, environmental, agricultural, industrial. Fields are allocated exclusively. No two spinouts compete inside the portfolio.
The studio identifies a senior domain expert as co-founder, vests them with majority equity, and gives them operational control. The studio retains platform ownership, not company ownership.
An arm's-length licence agreement on commercial terms. The spinout owns its products and data; the studio retains the underlying platform and accumulates training data across every deployment.
Australia's existing deep-tech support landscape splits into roughly five categories: lab-space providers, accelerators, university tech-transfer offices, generalist venture studios, and traditional venture capital. None of them do what a hybrid synthetic biology venture studio does — build the platform technology in-house, then form the companies around it with founder capital deployed first.
| Axis | Altered Carbon | Lab-space providers | Accelerators | University tech transfer | Generalist studios | Traditional VC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform IP creation | In-house, owned | ×None | ×None | ~Academic, then licensed | ×Rarely | ×None |
| Company formation | Co-founded with expert | ×Tenant only | ~Backs existing | ~Via licensee | ✓Yes (generalist) | ×Invests post-formation |
| Co-founder capital required | No — studio funds the start | ×Rent paid by founder | ~Some program capital | ×Self / public funded | ~Studio capital | ×Founder funds pre-VC |
| Equity structure | Founder majority + studio licence | ×No equity | ~5–10% | ~Royalty / equity | ×Studio 40–60% | ×Cap-table position |
| Domain focus | Synthetic biology, deep | Sector-agnostic | Sector-agnostic | Whatever the lab produces | Software / consumer | Thesis-led |
| Time to spinout | ~12 weeks | N/A | 3–6 months | 2–5 years | 6–12 months | N/A |
| Data ownership | Platform: studio · Outputs: spinout | N/A | N/A | Licensee owns outputs | Studio owns all | N/A |
The Altered Carbon platform is operational and generating commercial value across multiple domains today — independent of any single venture's development timeline.
Four capabilities run across every deployment: AI-driven biological design that shortens the path from hypothesis to candidate, multi-domain adaptability under exclusive field licences, a compounding training-data moat that strengthens with every sample processed, and a clean separation between platform and product that lets each spinout operate independently.
Protein engineering, sequence generation, binder design — across therapeutic, environmental, and agricultural targets.
Single underlying platform, adapted via exclusive field licences across vet therapeutics, eDNA, animal microbiome, soil microbiome, and engineered yeast.
Each deployment contributes training data to the core platform. Model improvements accrue to the studio; domain outputs remain with the spinout.
Each spinout is a separate legal entity with its own balance sheet, board, and team. The licence is the connective tissue, not the cap table.
Each venture below is a separate legal entity (or trading as one ahead of formal incorporation), licensing the Altered Carbon platform in its exclusive field. Together they span therapeutics, environmental science, sustainable materials, and pharmaceutical biosynthesis.
AI-engineered endolysin therapeutics for dogs and cats. Lead candidate EPB-101 targets canine pyoderma caused by Staphylococcus pseudintermedius. Currently raising a seed round.
endopel.comConsumer microbiome products for dogs and cats, built on the platform's metagenomic analysis capabilities. Operating today with planned formal spinout as the science matures.
baark.com.auEnvironmental DNA and animal microbiome science, with an exclusive field licence covering applications outside companion animals and agriculture. Winner of the 2025 National Science Week Award.
corymbia.ecoSoil and agricultural microbiome analysis under a formal per-sample processing agreement. Soilbiome retains data and outputs; Altered Carbon retains the underlying model. Currently raising a seed round.
soilbiome.aiEngineered yeast for the biosynthesis of rare cannabinoids beyond THC and CBD. First-generation platform designed, cloned, and validated in twelve weeks.
Metabolically engineered fungal strains overproducing indigo and indigoidine for textile and food applications — eliminating heavy post-fermentation processing required by incumbent biological dye platforms.
Bioengineered high-affinity binders integrated into fabric substrates for PPE and ventilation filtration. Demonstrated SARS-CoV-2 capture with retained activity through standard laundering cycles.
A biotechnological platform to convert plastic waste into proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Selected as a Top 5 Winner of the H&M Global Change Award from 2,537 entries across 129 countries.
Selected milestones across the studio and the spinout portfolio to date.
Personal cash and in-kind contribution by Dr Matthew Latif into the studio and portfolio since founding in 2021.
SWAY first-generation platform designed, cloned, and validated in twelve weeks — a fraction of the industry-standard development cycle.
Build the platform once. Licence it into clean commercial vehicles. Compound the advantage across every deployment. That is the studio. Everything else is logistics.
Altered Carbon engages with a small number of sophisticated counterparties. Each track corresponds to a specific kind of conversation we are actively having today.
We're actively recruiting senior domain experts to co-found ventures across the synthetic biology remit. The platform's current retained fields include human therapeutics built on the endolysin platform, AI-driven protein engineering as a service, and bacteriophage development — but the right operator with the right thesis can shape a new field with us.
If you're a PhD with ten or more years of operating experience in synthetic biology or an adjacent deep-tech domain, we should talk.
Get in touchCo-founders hold majority equity in the new entity. The studio retains the platform licence, not the cap table.
The spinout's CEO is its operating founder. The studio sits at the board level, not in the engine room.
Exclusive field-restricted access to the underlying platform technology, with data flow back to the core.
The studio writes the first cheque. You bring the domain expertise, not the cheque book.
Dr Matthew Latif founded Altered Carbon Synthetic Biology to build AI-driven biological platform technology at a scale, speed, and cost that no single operating company could justify on its own — and then to deploy that capability into focused ventures led by the best domain experts he can find.
Before Altered Carbon, Matthew founded the grant-writing businesses now operating as SBIR Grant Writers and Defense Grant Writers in the United States, serving clients across NSF, NIH, DoD, and DARPA. The practice has secured over US$227M in non-dilutive competitive funding for deep-tech startups, with a 41.2% award rate against an 18% national average. That work gave him a close-range view of how deep tech gets capitalised — and where it most often fails.
Altered Carbon is the answer: build the platform once, licence it into clean commercial vehicles, and compound the advantage across every deployment. Matthew has personally invested over A$2.5 million in cash and in-kind into the portfolio — capital deployed before asking anyone else to write a cheque. EndoPel is the first therapeutic expression of that strategy. More will follow.
BSc (Hons) · PhD · University of Queensland
Located in North Melbourne. Wet + dry lab capacity for platform development and spinout pre-formation work.
R10.4.1 platform in-house. Long-read shotgun metagenomic capability available to portfolio companies under licence.
In-house compute for platform training, sequence design, and bioinformatics.
Certified for engineered organism work across the portfolio.
Answers to the questions investors, co-founders, and partners ask most often.
A hybrid venture studio does three things that no single category of Australian deep-tech support does together: (1) develops platform IP in-house, (2) forms new companies around that IP with domain-expert co-founders, and (3) puts founder capital at risk first. Lab-space providers do none of these. Accelerators do only the second, and only for companies that already exist. University tech-transfer offices do the first and second indirectly. Generalist studios do the second and third but rarely the first. Traditional VC does only the third. The hybrid is platform builder + studio + capital provider, in one entity.
We could find no other Australian entity doing platform-tech development + company formation + founder capital, in synthetic biology specifically. CSIRO Main Sequence is a venture fund. The ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology is a research consortium. Cicada Innovations and Co-Labs are lab-space providers. SynBio 10x is an accelerator. BetterLabs is a venture studio but focused on insurance and mobility, not synbio. IDEA Bio is a services business, not a venture studio.
If you know of another entity in Australia matching all three legs of the model, we want to hear about it. Until then, the "first" claim stands.
The domain-expert co-founder holds majority equity in the operating company. Altered Carbon retains a meaningful minority position, an exclusive field-restricted licence to the platform technology, and rights to platform-level data improvements derived from the spinout's deployment. Domain-specific outputs (products, customer data, brand assets, applied IP) belong to the spinout. The platform itself never transfers.
Each licence grants the spinout the exclusive right to use the Altered Carbon platform technology within a defined commercial field. Fields are non-overlapping by design — for example, Corymbia Eco Sciences covers eDNA and animal microbiome outside companion animals and agriculture; EndoPel covers companion animal therapeutics; Soilbiome covers agricultural soil microbiome. No two spinouts compete inside the portfolio. The licence terms are commercial and arm's-length, not equity-equivalent.
Three streams. Licence fees and royalties from each spinout under its field licence. Equity appreciation in the studio's minority positions in operating spinouts. Platform services revenue from per-sample or per-deployment processing arrangements where appropriate (Soilbiome.ai operates under such an arrangement today). The studio is structured to be cash-flow positive on licence and services revenue independent of any spinout exit.
The platform is operational and has been since 2022. It is deployed in production across four active spinouts (EndoPel, baark, Corymbia, Soilbiome.ai) generating revenue, customers, and validated outputs. Soilbiome.ai operates under a formal per-sample processing agreement. SWAY's first-generation cannabinoid platform was designed, cloned, and validated in twelve weeks. PLSTC was independently recognised by H&M's Global Change Award as a top-5 finalist from 2,537 entries across 129 countries.
Studio-level investment conversations are open with sophisticated investors, family offices, and corporate venture funds. Typical entry is A$500k+ for studio-level exposure across the full portfolio. Spinout-level rounds (EndoPel and Soilbiome.ai are currently fundraising) run in parallel and are sized to the venture. Both are open conversations — the engagement section above describes the format for each.
We respond personally to every serious enquiry within five business days. No newsletter, no automated follow-up, no sales sequences.