Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc (KBLB)

[Eskaminagaga]

I believe that it will be sometime late 2017 to early 2018 before we are producing anything around enough sIlk at the pilot facility to support supplying orders. I base this on a number of rough timelines and, unfortunately, the lifecycle of a silkworm is probably the major limiting factor for this.

As es1 pointed out in his post #104109, it took Apple 70 days to create their subsidiary. After that, it will take about 10 days to go through the entire import process which I mentioned in my post #103284. Then comes the crossbreeding. According to the Monster Silk timeline, KBLB successfully created transgenic silkworms in September 2010 and had them crossbred by May 2011, so that is about 8 months or about 3-4 silkworm lifecycles. Then, the “ramping up” of Monster Silk lasted from October 2013 until July 2014 when they mentioned their quality control issues and implementing a new protocol. Assuming that they would have been hit metric tons around that time, it would have been about 9 months or another 4 silkworm cycles. Added together, the timeline is around 19-20 months from the Vietnam agreement until sales which puts it right at the end of 2017 barring no unforeseen issues or delays.

During these next couple years, costs will increase since Kim will have to pay local workers to train and work with the silkworms as well as the costs of the lease which likely means more dilution. Since KBLB is nearing the end of the current finance agreement, Kim is going to need to secure additional funds some other way. I am hoping that he will partner up with another company similar to the way that Spiber has partnered with Kojima Industries to acquire funding or get additional funding through grants or loans rather than dilutive financing. I don’t see the pps recovering if they continue to dilute as they have been the last couple years. A product released through Warwick Mills might cause a quick spike, but it will likely continue its downward trend and alleged manipulation unless some other means of financing is pursued.

Overall, I am still confident that KBLB will succeed and make a lot of money, but just not on the timeline that I was initially anticipating when I invested here. Spiber will beat KBLB to the market with their Moon Parka and has already made initial sales of their proteins to support this. Bolt Threads is also supposedly on the verge releasing their own products this year. KBLB will likely be third to market, but if their silk cost to produce is as cheap as it costs to make normal silk, that will be the big advantage. Spiber and Bolt Threads are touting the $100 per kilogram price point, but the cost to produce silk is around a quarter of that. Additionally, the 2GPa strength property of Dragon Silk will really be appealing to textile manufacturers and I don’t think that Spiber or Bolt Threads can match that (yet). Either way, there is a huge market out there and many applications for this silk. With only 3 startup companies entering within a couple years of each other, they all have the potential to become huge.