Gilly is revolutionizing cattle feed with fungi
Bo Xu, a fresh UC Berkeley Ph.D. grad and fungi expert, was poised to form a disruptive company. The catch? He knew how to run a mushroom farm, not how to found a startup. Here’s how Innovation Discovery helped Bo close the gap.
Meet Bo and his company, Gilly
Bo Xu began his founder journey with an ambitious “COVID project”: opening a commercial mushroom farm. While balancing a Ph.D. with selling mushrooms to stores and farmers markets across the Bay Area, he fell in love with running a thriving business. Bo decided to take his passion a step further, founding an agricultural technology company targeting the cattle industry.
Feed is the most expensive input cost faced by livestock farmers, with a global market valued at $600 billion. Bo’s answer to this problem was founding Gilly and developing a fungal prebiotic additive for cattle feed. A small amount helps cows digest more fiber, so they extract more energy from their food and need to eat less — lowering feed costs and lightening a farm’s environmental footprint. Bo describes his company’s pitch succinctly: “Feed efficiency is profitability and sustainability.” But how did he go from an idea to a company?
Innovation Discovery helps Gilly plan for success
When Bo joined the QB3 Innovation Discovery program, he had just finished his Ph.D. at Berkeley. While he was ready to disrupt the cattle feed market, he needed help transitioning from running a small mushroom business to building a scalable ag-tech company. On a labmate’s recommendation, Bo reached out to Innovation Discovery’s Katarina (Kat) Klett. From their first meeting, Kat recognized a driven founder with an exceptional idea and invited Bo to join.
Bo chose to work with Innovation Discovery because the program offered significant guidance on how to create a company and become a stronger entrepreneur, communicator and founder. Since Gilly was still early stage, Kat acted as a sounding board, helping Bo see past the red tape of company creation. “It was invaluable because I didn’t have anyone,” he reflects. With Kat and Innovation Discovery serving as a fractional team member, Gilly started to grow from an idea into a company.
“Any early stage founder would be incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Innovation Discovery”
—Bo Xu
With Innovation Discovery’s support, Gilly reaches key milestones
This growth triggered a domino effect, which accelerated when Bo asked for help pitching to IndieBio (now SOSV), his top choice for a pre-seed investor. For four rigorous months, Kat supported all aspects of his pitch, meeting weekly — day or night — to encourage and advise. Following Innovation Discovery’s mentorship, Bo grew considerably as an entrepreneur, and Gilly was accepted to SOSV’s San Francisco program. This milestone catalyzed a wave of capital; Gilly has now received non-dilutive funding from the F3i Innovation Grant and Beam Circular, and has also been accepted to the Activate Fellowship, a two-year, equity-free program.
Bo’s commentary on the experience? “Any early stage founder would be incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Innovation Discovery,” he says. Bo chose to continue learning from the QB3 ecosystem, and Gilly became the first company to move from Innovation Discovery to the QB3 Early Stage Mentoring program.
What’s next for Gilly?
After a commercial feed trial confirmed palatability and in vitro rumen studies showed that the fungal additive can substantially improve fiber digestibility, the company is now looking to confirm these results in vivo. Gilly has secured a pilot-scale facility in Modesto, California, and is preparing to produce its additive for larger trials and controlled studies before commercializing to feed mills.
As a driven entrepreneur and scientist, Bo was going to build Gilly one way or another. Innovation Discovery’s mentorship got him there faster — helping him reach his first feeding trials within nine months.
Does your story mirror Bo and Gilly’s? Looking for guidance on early stage company creation? Reach out to the Innovation Discovery team!
