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Hi Mike,
I cannot find a picture of the inside of the factory, so I don't know one way of the other if what you are saying about it being mostly empry is true. Do you still have that picture?
While what you say about the Japanese culture in regards to business is fairly true from what I understand, it is not to the extent that you claim and I don't think it applies to small startup businesses, but more to larger established ones. The younger generation is also much more westernized and, although still polite and cooperative in comparison to the USA, is much more likely to say something if they find something wrong, which is why we are now seeing many scandals come out in long established Japanese companies. Simply put, the massive extent that they would have to go to pull off a scam of this scale is just not feaseable in my mind.
That is an idea, but I dont really have the cash for it at the moment and don't really want to sell my KBLB shares for it quite yet.
No Problem!
Really, i am just interested in the science behind it all and have made it sort of a hobby of mine to keep up with where everything is at. I simply share the notes that I take when the subject is brought up.
KBLB is the only public company, so it is the only company that I can invest anything in, but I feel that it will do very well as soon as they can set up a commercial facility. I am excited to see where it all leads to.
1) The article that I linked to was of a Japanese government organization that did finance Spiber, so were keeping tabs on them to ensure that their money was being well spent. The image was taken while the factory was under construction from June until November 2013. I personally also started to look into Spiber in late 2014 and became aware of the factory producing 100 Kg a month of proteins at max capacity at that time.
If you want articles from independent news sources, here is one from a Japanese Financial Newspaper dated February 2013, before they even started construction of their first factory, that lays out Spiber’s plans stating that they will build a 100 kg/month facility by October 2013 (was actually completed November 2013) and construct a second one that can produce one ton a month in 2015 (which was actually completed in September 2014): http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASFB2005B_Q3A220C1L01000/
Another article released by the same paper in November 2013 (http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASFB2805Y_Y3A121C1L01000/) states that the first factory was completed.
2) I am not 100% fluent in Japanese and much of the Kanji on the presentation goes over my head and takes a really long time for me to sit and decipher each one without an app to at least break it down to hiragana, but on the top of Slide 4 (page 3), it has those numbers that I stated as their commercialization goal and the text itself can be copied and pasted into a translation service. This presentation was created by Spiber to show to ImPACT in order to acquire funding from them (which they did receive). If you believe that they lied and that the government organization did not do any sufficient fact checking prior to giving them the funding, or that since it is a forward looking statement it is not applicable, then you can simply disregard the values.
3) In his post Post 95956, he agreed that a sample existed, he just questioned the properties of it. Also, yes, I did link to a VC that invested in Bolt Threads. I figured that reading their train of thought on the subject and events that led to it shows how they came to the conclusion that Bolt Threads was worth the millions of dollars of investment into them and shined a lot of light on what they have. Sure, they did utilize Sue Levin when doing their DD on Bolt Threads. I don’t blame them. I utilized Ben Hansel when doing my DD on KBLB. That is to be expected.
In addition to this, I have also personally been in contact in the past with a few students on the 2015 UCLA iGEM team that were working with Bolt Threads as part of the project, but not working for them. I got a lot of good info from them about why yeast is better than E. coli (despite the fact that they used E. coli in the iGEM) and how they felt that Bolt Threads is a good, viable company. They unfortunately did not go into too many details about the specifics on them, but they were very confident that Bolt will do very well when they reach commercialization.
Either way, in the next couple years, it will start to become very obvious what the properties and applications are for each company’s product and how viable they are. I still believe that all three companies will do very well initially as there is a very large market out there for these fibers. I feel that KBLB will do better initially over the first few years since they can presumably scale up very inexpensively, but as the price of the “goo” production comes down, I think that will be a better long term solution and hopefully Kim will pick it up then. Time will tell if I am right.
I noticed that as well. I am not sure what it meant either, but it hope it is in reference to his intention to adopt that method of spider protein production once it becomes cost effective enough for him. Let the others do most of the initial testing and R&D using these systems, then pick it up himself and use the gene sequences that are already patented on a new chassis. Instant Dragon Silk proteins that can be made into a film, foam, mesh, or used in whatever other application that fibers could not be used in.
Well, i could be wrong about the processing being cheap. I don't know a lot about it, but in the Bolt Threads FAQ, they state that they use a wet-spinning process similar to the one that is used to make rayon and acrylic which is maybe why they could say "Bolt expects its spinning process to yield spider silk yarn at a price of less than $100 per kg". I do agree that they do make their process sound excessively simple. I bet there is more to it than what they let on.
Spiber's fibers might use a different method and, as a result, may be more expensive as you stated. That is something that we will see when they actually commercialize (which i am still betting on 2017, despite what The North Face claimed).
I do believe that KBLB's actual production costs will likely be somewhere closer to $50 per kg and i don't think that announcing that will get others up in arms. I think the opportunity to be one of the first companies to have spider silk in their textiles, the understanding that they are also paying for the 8 years of R&D that went into it, and the fact that there is not even close to the supply of fibers that there is demand for the fibers will be more of a factor into the price.
Hi Mike!
I agree, it is future expectations, but the value that they have cited is massively different (1000x) from the value that Kim did. I wish that he would have addressed this value.
I also agree that AMSilk has some cosmetic products out, but last I heard their fibers were lacking, so I don't expect them to be entering the commercial textile market any time soon. I am more concerned about Spiber Inc. and Bolt Threads Inc. as rival companies to KBLB.
I disagree with your statements about Bolt and Spiber, though, and the capital that they have raised along with the companies that they are working with show evidence of that.
Also, for the record, Spiber Inc's first factory with a max output of 100 Kg a month of spider proteins went online in November 2013. They were producing proteins at that time, so I dont know why you think that they would be a scam.
There have been updated expected costs released.
Spiber Inc. states on their website:
Granted, he did acknowledge that their costs have likely lowered, I just wish he would have addressed the $100 per kilogram price points that Spiber Inc. and Bolt Threads Inc. have stated to be their expected production cost and possibly revised his last stated $150 per kilogram expected cost.
Well, if that were the case, I don't think he should have brought up the website thing in the first place. Just say something along the lines of concerns over protecting unpatented proprietary information from potential rivals.
If there were more to it, a legitimate concern other than a website screenshot, then I would not have had an issue with him bringing that up. With just the information presented, it made him seem very paranoid.
Honestly, I wish that Kim would have kept quiet about that bit of info concerning the other lab having screenshots of his website. It is one thing to be worried about others acquiring unpatented proprietary info, but being worried about a website screenshot is simply paranoid and rather embarrassing. It is akin to being worried about them having a photograph of a billboard that they put up.
I have no doubt that others in the field of developing synthetic and recombinant Spider Silks are interested in what he has to say as well as other rival companies and laboratories. This is normal and expected. It is not like they are hacking into their computers or sending spies to work in their labs. In fact, I kind of wish that Kim would spend some effort keeping up with rivals as well. Citing an outdated value like $100,000 per kilogram produced either shows that he not following recent developments in the companies or he is being purposefully misleading.
I have hope for the company and feel that it has the potential to make a lot of money once they finally do commercialize. I thought the conference call answered a lot of questions and gave a lot of good info that clarified a lot going on, but Kim should really leave the Q&A session to Jon Rice in the future. He is frankly a better public speaker and can give clear, concise answers without coming off as defensive, paranoid, or ignorant/misleading.
Sorry for the rant, but I have been thinking it over for a few days now and reading that again made me want to get that off my chest.
Kim stated the following:
After this CC, i think it is in the USA.
I used to think that it was in Taiwan, but they have already existing silk quality control infrastructure. Any other place on that list has a lot of restrictions concerning the import of GMOs.
Here is the info that I got from the call.
I have listened to my recording a few times and wrote down all relevant info. While the call itself has an unprofessional feel to it, especially with the technical issues, it was very informative. Here are the highlights that I got:
- No agreement with Vietnam yet, but is very close. Someone is there currently shepherding the agreement.
- They plan on starting up a Kraig Labs subsidiary in Vietnam.
- They have signed a lease on an office in Ho Chi Minh City
- Kraig Labs has been having issues with their silk quality and quality control. Vietnam should solve this with their current infrastructure.
- They have 11 stable genetic strains of silkworm, 7 in development.
- Dragon Silk is not longer in development stage, it is ready for "Scale and Sale"
- They have partnered with a clothing manufacturer and produced the first test textiles in November.
- In partnership with Warwick Mills, they have produced their first hybrid woven fabrics with Monster Silk combined with synthetics.
- They are in the process of creating pure silk fabrics and will evaluate them for ballistics performance.
- The CEO still feels that the silkworm approach to Spider Silks is the best, but he is not opposed to using other methods in the future.
- The CSC agreement is sufficient for current financing, but they plan on up-listing to a higher exchange post commercialization should should allow access to larger potions of capital allowing a significant upscale in operations.
- There are no merger or buyout discussions currently, but they will consider buying an asset in the future.
- The lab space at Notre Dame has become more efficient which caused under-utilization of their second lab, so they discontinued the lease agreement.
- They are using a new genetic engineering protocol which allows for advanced editing of silkworm DNA. They believe they can achieve pure spider silk with this technology.
- They did not send a representative to the ITMA Future Materials Awards due to the timing and cost. They do plan on attending any future ceremonies.
- The reason that they stop scaling up to the metric ton milestone is due to the fact that the quality control at their pilot production facility's local infrastructure is lacking.
- The reason that the agreement to start up the facility in Vietnam has yet to be approved is due to bureaucracy.
- They are looking into improving infrastructure at the pilot production facility.
- They are looking into other countries in addition to Vietnam as well, but there would be bureaucracy at those locations as well.
- While many strides have been made scientifically, a major issue for the company has been lack of quality production. The CEO feels that this issue needs to be corrected before he will move forward with commercial production and sales.
- Many of their current silk strains have properties that outperform standard spider silk. They are focused on improving these properties further moving forward.
- Dragon Silk's average tensile strength has been improved through selective breeding and they have seen it exceed 2 GPa.
- They plan on starting Dragon Silk batch production early 2016.
- The company feels that it has been good at putting out info, but they feel that some info would be used against the company. Despite this, they do feel like they could do better and plan on putting out more info to shareholders in the future.
- The agreement with Warwick Mills is a development agreement for new textiles. They will see where it goes in the coming months.
- The call was dropped at this point, but should be continued in the future.
So you were right, I apologize for doubting you.
I believe it will happen eventually. I am just not 100% confident that it will happen at the end of this week since I haven heard whether or not Vietnam has passed the legislation yet. I don't think Kim will have the CC until it is passed.
Following the general pattern of PR's put out by the company, I expect to see this one come out at 6:00 est tomorrow morning assuming the CC hasn't been moved again.
I hear that. It seems every one of those articles rips off the Spoon and Tamago article http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2015/10/20/moon-parka-outerwear-made-from-synthetic-spider-silk/
That is just a rip off of the article that Zenaku posted earlier this year in his Post #87597.
(Original Article Here)
Thanks for the updates!
BTW, who was the winner in the "Best Innovation - Sustainable textiles (process)"?
The website states that the award ceremony starts at 9:15 pm local time.
https://www.futurematerialsawards.com/table-booking/
Conference Call: December 4th, 2015 at 4:30 PM EST
EOM
Red,
The award ceremony that takes place tomorrow is the ITMA Sustainable Innovation Award. KBLB is not included in this award ceremony.
The ITMA Future Materials Awards takes place on November 16th. This is where KBLB is a finalist in three categories.
C&EN: Bolt Threads
Spinning synthetic spider silk into wearable textiles
By Alex Scott
http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i43/Bolt-Threads.html
Imagine a fiber five times as strong as steel but softer than wool. It sounds like something a superhero would wear, but chemist Dan Widmaier is well on his way to making that fantastical fiber a reality. In 2010, Widmaier cofounded Bolt Threads with the left-field idea of developing an inexpensive way to produce synthetic spider silk.
Widmaier’s idea isn’t novel. Scientists have spent the past two decades trying to figure out the chemistry and biology of making synthetic spider silk that can be spun into yarn. Bolt’s scientists may finally have cracked nature’s code: The company expects its spider silk process will be ready for commercial rollout next year. If successful in hitting that goal, it will likely be the first company to get a spider silk fabric onto the market.
Bolt’s scientists use recombinant technology to modify the genetic code of spider genes that make silk proteins and insert them into a strain of yeast. Fed with sugar and water and left to ferment, the yeast expresses the spider silk protein. The company can tune the properties of the silk—making it, for example, stretchier or stronger—based on the genes inserted into the yeast.
After some processing steps, the silk protein is converted into yarn through a wet-spinning system similar to what’s used to spin acrylic and rayon fibers.
Other firms are also racing to commercialize spider silk fiber. Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Kraig Biocraft Laboratories says it’s collaborating with textile companies to make woven products using its hybrid silkworm-spider silk fiber, which is produced by silkworms modified with spider DNA.
And Germany’s AMSilk has been producing spider silk protein for applications such as shampoos and cosmetics since early 2014. But so far it has failed to come up with a commercial process for making yarn with the right mechanical properties and the right price.
Bolt isn’t daunted by the competition. The company says its process is ready for commercialization. A U.S.-based custom manufacturer will supply the protein, and the company is exploring both internal and external options for spinning.
Moreover, Bolt expects its spinning process to yield spider silk yarn at a price of less than $100 per kg—a level the company believes will allow it to compete with fine-quality natural fibers such as cashmere, silk, and mohair. “We’re very confident that our economics are significantly better than previous efforts to commercialize spider silk,” Widmaier says.
Investors share Bolt’s confidence. During its first few years, the company secured $40 million in funding from Foundation Capital and Formation 8—a sum that dwarfs the money raised by other spider silk firms. Bolt has used some of the cash to build a team of researchers; today the firm has 50 employees, almost all of whom are scientists.
Bolt plans to start spinning yarn commercially by 2016. If successful, we may soon be ditching our polyester, wool, or cotton garments for the novel experience of pulling on clothes made from spider silk.
Chemical & Engineering News
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2015 American Chemical Society
I have always wondered how Spiber Inc. was going to use their spider proteins in car parts. I had assumed air bags or interior fabrics or the like. Recently, i came across the BMW GINA (Video Here)
It was introduced back in 2008 and utilizes a light fabric body made of polyurethane-coated Spandex. If car companies start mimicking this design, then this material that needs to be both strong and elastic would be an ideal application for spider silks.
Assuming a Japanese car company gets exclusive rights to Spiber's silks and it becomes popular enough to create demand in the general car market, there are still dozens of others that will be scrambling to get their hands on some other fibers to create something similar.
Maybe Kim should appeal to BMW about this once he can actually get a commercial facility up and running.
To tell the truth, I dont think that any silks the way they are now will displace Kevlar. If anything, they would compliment it.
It is a price point that Spiber is gunning for, but has yet to achieve. The 2017 date is speculation on my part based on their current goal for commercialization.
Spiber Inc. recently updated their website with new information on this which is where I drew from. The points in particular are:
Ill give you that. Nothing is definitive until it happens.
Possibly, if they claimed that they are aiming for that price point as Spiber Inc. is claiming.
I haven't seen any strong evidence that they might not succeed. They are still around, were hiring as of a couple months ago, and still trying to attract VC support if Cee-It's Post #92570 and Post #92880 are to be believed.
It takes 2-3 years from planting mulberry seedlings to producing enough to supply a sericulture facility, so since they set up at ReVenture park about this time last year, I would expect them to start ramping up in another year or two. I am hoping KBLB will be set up and running in Vietnam by then.
I feel KBLB has more potential than Entogenetics based on what I know about both, but I would not discount Entogenetics completely. Their product would be the most similar to KBLB's in production and cost, so they would likely be a direct competitor if/when they do commercialize.
Per your link, they will be showing the prototype parka at various locations in Japan. The North Face Instagram page is shoing a teaser of this: https://instagram.com/p/8nYvsYFnnR/