{"data":{"type":"company_profile","id":9314,"entity_id":"wefunder:company:9314","attributes":{"canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa","generated_at":"2026-06-23T02:14:43Z","updated_at":"2026-06-22T05:02:51Z","entity_ids":{"company":"wefunder:company:9314","slug":"wefunder:company_slug:taxa"},"profile_visibility":{"owner_published":true,"public_search_results":true,"site_search_listed":true,"privacy_mode":"promote","invite_only":false},"provenance":{"source":"wefunder_public_company_profile","as_of":"2026-06-23T02:14:43Z","claims":{"total_amount_raised":{"source":"FrontCompanySummary#amount_raised","last_verified_at":"2026-06-22T05:02:51Z","as_of":"2026-06-23T02:14:43Z","confidence":"high"},"total_investors":{"source":"FrontCompanySummary#number_of_investors","last_verified_at":"2026-06-22T05:02:51Z","as_of":"2026-06-23T02:14:43Z","confidence":"high"},"active_raise_states":{"source":"Fundraise.visible(nil, nil)","last_verified_at":"2025-05-10T18:52:21Z","as_of":"2026-06-23T02:14:43Z","confidence":"high"},"latest_fundraise_state":{"source":"Fundraise.visible(nil, nil).order(funding_started_at)","last_verified_at":"2025-05-10T18:52:21Z","as_of":"2026-06-23T02:14:43Z","confidence":"medium"}}},"company":{"id":9314,"entity_id":"wefunder:company:9314","slug":"taxa","name":"TAXA Biotechnologies","tagline":"Bio-engineering for the home, starting with a glowing plant","elevator_pitch":"We enable cheaper, faster, and better genetic engineering of plants. We offer our platform both as a service to other companies and use it internally to develop our own engineered plants. We make money from platform access service fees and from royalties on the sale of the final products. Our first product is a Glowing Plant, which was the first Kickstarter for a synthetic biology application earning us over $600k in pre-orders. 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Louis Frank and Oppidan scholar. Consultant with Bain \u0026amp; Company and Oliver Wyman Singularity University GSP graduate","avatar_url":"https://uploads.wefunder.com/uploads/company_role/custom_photo/43374/square_cropped_an.jpg?1463195542","profile_url":"https://wefunder.com/antony.evans","personal_url":"www.taxa.com","linkedin_url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonyevans","twitter_url":"https://twitter.com/glowingplant","related_urls":["https://wefunder.com/antony.evans","www.taxa.com"]}],"featured_investors":[],"investor_memos":[],"tab_counts":{"posts":9,"ask_questions":76,"featured_investors":0,"faq_entries":5},"active_fundraises":[{"id":5315,"entity_id":"wefunder:fundraise:5315","state":"successful","offering_type":"4(a)(6)","funding_type":"note","structure":"safe","security_type":"equity","currency":"USD","testing_the_waters":false,"min_purchase":100,"max_purchase":9,"funding_target":200000.0,"funding_started_at":"2016-05-16T11:36:36Z","funding_closed_at":"2016-08-10T05:05:57Z","auto_close_at":"2016-08-10T03:59:00Z"}],"latest_fundraise":{"id":5315,"entity_id":"wefunder:fundraise:5315","state":"successful","offering_type":"4(a)(6)","structure":"safe","testing_the_waters":false,"can_invest_now":false,"funding_started_at":"2016-05-16T11:36:36Z","funding_closed_at":"2016-08-10T05:05:57Z","terms":{"eb":null,"nb":"$7M","txt":"valuation cap"}},"recent_posts":[{"id":90479,"entity_id":"wefunder:feed_item:90479","type":"FeedItem::Update","visibility":"public","title":"TAXA: Introducing Orbella the Fragrant Moss","preview":"Five years ago, Antony set out on a mission to genetically engineer plants and make them glow. Undoubtedly, this was an ambitious project and he was determined to share the beautiful side of GMOs, which normally get bad rep as something concocted by evil conglomerates’ scientists trying to destroy the world. The project proved ambitious and there were obstacles that hindered TAXA from delivering the promised plants on time. Antony’s new product Orbella's scent doesn’t fill up an entire room b...","published_at":"2017-07-31T20:50:53Z","author_name":"Jiwon Moon","url":"/feed/90479","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/feed/90479"},{"id":90640,"entity_id":"wefunder:feed_item:90640","type":"FeedItem::Update","visibility":"public","title":"Tell your friends about Orbella","preview":"The big day is finally here and we’ve started shipping Orbella Fragrant Moss. The first shipments are going in the mail this morning so if you were really fast to order the terrarium you’ll be getting your moss this week, we’ll ship more next Monday – you’ll get an email once we ship yours. Please get the word out to your friends on social media, we’ve made a discount code “FRIENDSOFOURS” so you can offer them 30% off for being friends with one of our investors. You can use these links to one...","published_at":"2017-07-25T17:20:13Z","author_name":"Antony Evans","url":"/feed/90640","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/feed/90640"},{"id":90236,"entity_id":"wefunder:feed_item:90236","type":"FeedItem::Update","visibility":"public","title":"2016 Annual Report","preview":"It’s my pleasure to bring you our first Annual Report. Now that we have a large number of investors, following our successful Title III equity crowd-raise on WeFunder, we will use this report to keep you all updated on the condition of our business and any changes to our business plan as it evolves over time.In this report you will find an update on our business strategy and plan, information on the Company and capital structure and our 2016 Financial Statements.We plan to launch Orbella, our...","published_at":"2017-05-02T18:15:29Z","author_name":"Antony Evans","url":"/feed/90236","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/feed/90236"},{"id":89282,"entity_id":"wefunder:feed_item:89282","type":"FeedItem::Update","visibility":"public","title":"TAXA Q2 Investor Update","preview":"We plan to produce quarterly investor updates, as we have been doing for our existing accredited investors for the past 18 months. With one week to go in our campaign we thought it time to share our most recent update so you can have a feel for the kind of updates you’ll be getting in the future.Highlights:WeFunder campaign has been successfully and is due to close on August 9thFragrant moss scale up proceeding on schedule, we’ve also found some interesting research on additional genes which ...","published_at":"2016-08-04T20:00:51Z","author_name":"Antony Evans","url":"/feed/89282","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/feed/89282"},{"id":88883,"entity_id":"wefunder:feed_item:88883","type":"FeedItem::Update","visibility":"public","title":"Introducing Globiotics","preview":"Today we thought we would update you on one of our other collaborative research agreements, Globiotics. This represents about 5% of the teams total efforts and the primary focus is on addressing regulatory challenges rather than technical challenges (in contrast to our plants which are the other way round: clear regulatory pathway but challenging technical issues).Read the full update","published_at":"2016-07-18T20:50:12Z","author_name":"Antony Evans","url":"/feed/88883","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/feed/88883"},{"id":88338,"entity_id":"wefunder:feed_item:88338","type":"FeedItem::Update","visibility":"public","title":"Didn’t catch our LIVE Q\u0026amp;A? Listen to it here.","preview":"We held a LIVE podcast last Thursday and answered questions such as how TAXA plans to transform public opinion on GMOs and how we’re going to beat our competitors.If you missed last week’s podcast, you can listen to it below! And if you still have questions for us, just add them to the bottom of our profile and we’ll be happy to answer them.","published_at":"2016-06-27T18:11:22Z","author_name":"Antony Evans","url":"/feed/88338","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/feed/88338"},{"id":88169,"entity_id":"wefunder:feed_item:88169","type":"FeedItem::Update","visibility":"public","title":"LIVE Q\u0026amp;A, THURSDAY @ 5PM (PST)","preview":"We'll be having a LIVE Q\u0026A podcast this Thursday @ 5PM (PST). We'll be talking about a-ha! moments, stories from the TAXA team, and of course, answering any questions you all have.Feel free to send any questions you have now to podcast@wefunder.com or tweet them @wefunder with #taxapodcast. Excited to hear from you all!Antony","published_at":"2016-06-22T00:16:45Z","author_name":"Antony Evans","url":"/feed/88169","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/feed/88169"},{"id":87566,"entity_id":"wefunder:feed_item:87566","type":"FeedItem::Update","visibility":"public","title":"Fragrant Moss passes final technical milestone","preview":"Really exciting news to bring you today, we’ve got confirmation that we successfully removed the herbicide resistance gene from our Fragrant Moss product. This was the final technical milestone to make the moss and now we just have to manufacture enough to distribute to customers which shouldn’t have too many challenges. In this update we are sharing some changes we’ve made to our fundraising to reflect the increased certainty of getting fragrant moss to market, results of some user testing w...","published_at":"2016-06-01T21:29:41Z","author_name":"Antony Evans","url":"/feed/87566","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/feed/87566"},{"id":86701,"entity_id":"wefunder:feed_item:86701","type":"FeedItem::Update","visibility":"public","title":"TAXA checklist for Title III equity crowdfunding","preview":"Today, we are excited to announce that we’re going Title III. We previously ran what was (at the time) one of the top 100 Kickstarter campaigns so we thought it would be valuable to other founders to share the key differences we’ve found preparing for an equity crowdfunding campaign versus a rewards-based campaign.Equity crowdfunding has an administrative load at least equal to the entire amount of work we put into our Kickstarter campaign (over 25 people contributed to getting us ready for l...","published_at":"2016-05-16T16:06:31Z","author_name":"Antony Evans","url":"/feed/86701","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/feed/86701"}],"q_and_a":[{"id":23150,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:23150","question":"I have a hard time to trust anything that is going on for TAXA. CEO has previously run another company, \"Glowing Plants\". I along with bunch of others donated as \"backers\" to support their glowing plant projects. We were promised with seeds of glowing plants PLUS recycled light bulb vase along with other stuff. We did not receive anything. Now, the new company is named \"TAXA\" but it is the same people. Could the founder let people know how the company is going to make it up for people who has previously supported their projects ? Forgot to mention, CEO mentioned that they did not have money to ship any of the promised gifts, i.e. .. book, vase, seeds, and etc.. I even mentioned that I am local to San Francisco that I can come by to pick them up. No email responses....","author_name":"James C","votes":2,"created_at":"2018-06-26T23:41:30Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-23150","answers":[]},{"id":28618,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:28618","question":"Why did TAXA fail?","author_name":"Nicholas Peterson","votes":1,"created_at":"2018-10-06T01:00:45Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-28618","answers":[{"id":29015,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:29015","answer":"Due to product delays we were out of cash by the time we were ready to ship the Fragrant Moss, which mean we had no time to iterate the marketing mix to get product market fit. Sales of the moss were then not sufficient to allow us to get enough scale in production to sell it profitably.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":1,"created_at":"2018-10-17T13:32:52Z"}]},{"id":23006,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:23006","question":"Are there any updates?","author_name":"Aalap Sharma","votes":1,"created_at":"2018-06-23T22:02:09Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-23006","answers":[{"id":23009,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:23009","answer":"Not at the moment. Still working on clearing things up with creditors and getting the certificate of dissolution.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":1,"created_at":"2018-06-23T23:29:51Z"}]},{"id":14985,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:14985","question":"When will the Orbella moss be sent out to investors to see for themselves?","author_name":"Joshua Littmann","votes":1,"created_at":"2017-10-26T15:13:34Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-14985","answers":[]},{"id":13988,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:13988","question":"While I am very happy you have launched your first product, the fragrant moss, I have a major concern. I sent the product to several people to let them know they should consider it for their home or as a \"gift\" for someone the next time they are in the market to buy a gift and everyone one of them said they really liked the product but the price point was too high for them to consider it. I agree, it feels like a product that should be priced considerably lower to sell in volume. Can you make the unit economics work at a lower price point?","author_name":"Kevin McIntosh","votes":1,"created_at":"2017-09-20T22:45:02Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-13988","answers":[{"id":13992,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:13992","answer":"Thanks for sharing your concern. I agree with you that the current price is too high, it's because we are only growing the moss at lab scale production. I think a target price of $40-50 would be better. We are in the process of finalizing a plan for how to increase production - it will require moving to our own facility rather than a shared lab space and investing in large photo bioreactors so we can grow more moss with the same staff size. We are going to need additional capital to setup that facility, and will start looking for that once we finalize the plan.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2017-09-20T23:57:12Z"}]},{"id":9313,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:9313","question":"Here's a recent update from Taxa than is found on Wefunder for any investors https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants-natural-lighting-with-no-electricit/posts/1786250","author_name":"Scott Fulk","votes":1,"created_at":"2017-04-23T18:22:15Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-9313","answers":[{"id":9342,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:9342","answer":"Thanks for sharing Scott. We'll be sending a full investor update before the end of the month covering this and some other things (I'm waiting to file our annual report with the SEC and hoping we have good news to announce on the moss which fingers crossed will come this week).","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2017-04-24T19:44:24Z"}]},{"id":7922,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7922","question":"How do I invest, who or where do I need to go to invest funds?","author_name":"Zachary Lopez","votes":1,"created_at":"2017-02-01T14:31:12Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-7922","answers":[{"id":7926,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7926","answer":"Our WeFunder campaign is currently closed and so not accepting new investors. If you are an accredited investor interested in investing more than $10,000 then please get in touch and we can talk.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2017-02-02T00:32:00Z"}]},{"id":7613,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7613","question":"My most recent question about how are you doing and where do I find new/updates about the company was deleted. That is concerning. What is going on?","author_name":"Matthew Albright","votes":1,"created_at":"2017-01-14T03:12:38Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-7613","answers":[{"id":7620,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7620","answer":"Not sure why news updates was deleted. We just posted a science update to the glowing plant blog page, we'll be posting a more business focused investor update to Medium soon. Main thing is that things with the moss are going great, here's the science update: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants-natural-lighting-with-no-electricit/posts/1783649","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2017-01-14T22:20:28Z"}]},{"id":7607,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7607","question":"Please update us on the company status. I believe quarterly updates were promised?","author_name":"Brian Pryor","votes":1,"created_at":"2017-01-13T15:08:32Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-7607","answers":[{"id":7609,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7609","answer":"That's right, we've actually written most of the current update but are just waiting for some experiment results on the glowing plant.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":1,"created_at":"2017-01-13T18:00:24Z"}]},{"id":7579,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7579","question":"Any news? Where can I find it? How's it going?","author_name":"Matthew Albright","votes":1,"created_at":"2017-01-12T12:52:57Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-7579","answers":[{"id":7610,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7610","answer":"there will be an investor update shortly.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2017-01-13T18:00:42Z"}]},{"id":7483,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7483","question":"I am a original Kickstarter backer. When will I receive my glowing rose?","author_name":"Wai Lam","votes":1,"created_at":"2017-01-06T03:28:03Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-7483","answers":[{"id":7611,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7611","answer":"We don't have a timeline on that currently, we are working to debug the issues with the first glowing plant, the rose will follow after that.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2017-01-13T18:08:18Z"}]},{"id":7030,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7030","question":"Hola, estamos interesados en vender vuestro producto en España, si pueden pónganse en contacto conmigo. Gracias. email: juanantoniobermudezfaus@gmail.com","author_name":"Juan Bermudez","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-12-13T12:28:06Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-7030","answers":[{"id":7035,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7035","answer":"I'm afraid I don't speak Spanish, but I think you are asking to sell our products in Spain. Unfortunately we focus on making GMO products and these have very high regulatory barriers to selling in the EU.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2016-12-13T19:42:35Z"}]},{"id":5626,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:5626","question":"Very cool venture, especially the \"do it yourself\" capabilities regarding the at-home kit. Never worked with plants before in this capacity: not quite sure about the plasmid you've designed, but since these plants auto-luminesce, I gather it's probably luciferase based. With the agrobacteria, does this result in stable transfection of a plant of interest? Or transient? What is the typical transfection efficiency? I'm a fan of tropical gardening; it'd be neat if my plants and their progeny glowed in the dark at night!","author_name":"Matt S","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-09-22T03:51:22Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-5626","answers":[]},{"id":4975,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4975","question":"Good day, I'm a new investor and very excited about our LONG term success! I was a little bummed however to see Stratifund predict that (to paraphrase): investors in this round aren't likely to share in the long term successes because the company is most likely going to rebuy these shares in the future, to the company's benefit... How would you respond to this? Thanks.","author_name":"Ken Power","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-08-13T19:55:44Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-4975","answers":[{"id":5013,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:5013","answer":"I haven't seen that prediction, so I'm not clear what he's talking about, would appreciate if you send me a link. We have no intention to rebuy the shares to the company's benefit. There are rebuy clauses in the share purchase agreement, and this might be what Stratifund is talking about, the sole purpose of these are to avoid strenuous reporting requirements with the SEC once we hit $25MM in assets. These reporting requirements are the same as if you go public and as you probably know they impose large costs on the company. We expect the senate to ratify the 'fix crowdfunding act' which was overwhelmingly passed by congress in a bi-partisan fashion, once this is passed we expect to transfer the Title III shareholders shares into an SPV structure that will have identical financial return characteristics to the current shares but which will not trigger the SEC reporting requirements. The repurchase clause is required for us to be able to make that transfer in the future.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-08-15T19:05:05Z"}]},{"id":4940,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4940","question":"By that logic every plant on Earth that isn't on a farm or in a pot is self-fertilizing. So is aquaponics, as you only provide food for the fish. Furthermore, the symbiotic relationship only covers Nitrogen, and not all of it. There's a host of macro and micronutrients that plants require. Azospirillum is exceptionally effective when it comes to converting atmospheric Nitrogen. It can account for 80% of the need for Nitrogen. Then you just need to figure out the other 20%, along with the entire rest of the required nutrients. Myriads of plants develop relationships with microbes, and other plants. If you mean that you can reduce the need for manufactured fertilizers, you are correct. Otherwise, you'really just another charlatan.","author_name":"Ronald Swanson","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-08-12T01:35:17Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-4940","answers":[{"id":4962,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4962","answer":"Only legumes are 'self-fertilizing'. And yes the goal of this idea is to replace the need for manufactured fertilizers by engineering plants so that they can get their own nitrogen. This is one of the big 'holy grails' for plant engineering, and there are many different ways we might get there. Note that we are not currently working on this, it's something for later when the platform is more developed.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2016-08-12T21:45:39Z"}]},{"id":4546,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4546","question":"We are considering investment at the $3000 level, which helps establish a distribution partnership and planter sales agreement - is there a way to receive a sample of the moss product, so that we can evaluate both our perceived immediate market viability and to get an idea of the scent, so that an appropriate planter may be designed?","author_name":"Diamond Redmond","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-07-18T21:17:44Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-4546","answers":[{"id":4553,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4553","answer":"We'd need you to sign our material transfer agreement to send you this. Best to email me and we'll take it from there.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-07-19T17:15:03Z"}]},{"id":4443,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4443","question":"Hi, two questions: 1) How do we return the Early Bird investor document? The email from Wefunder says to sign it - but not what then to do with it. 2) How do we provide our info to receive the scented moss (for investors above the right investment level)? Apologies if I missed this info somewhere","author_name":"Todd Mulder","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-07-14T00:00:06Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-4443","answers":[{"id":4457,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4457","answer":"You just have to click the link in the email to sign it/accept the terms. You can download and keep a copy for your records, we use e-signature. Regarding shipping address we'll follow up with an email survey for that once the moss is ready to ship (we are growing up the volumes currently so will be in a few months).","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-07-15T00:48:59Z"}]},{"id":4423,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4423","question":"Pretty interesting legal loophole you have found in US. Is it really so? The definition of what is GMO is based on methods of their creation-production and it does not include ballistic transformation. That means that any GMO created with this method legally is not GMO and does not need all that long and hugely expensive approval process from US regulation authorities. It can go on sales for growing by any person all over country immediately after production. Great to know that.","author_name":"Vladimir Kaigorodov","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-07-12T13:55:20Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-4423","answers":[{"id":4424,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4424","answer":"Our products are still GMO, they are just not regulated as you point out. Here's a link to the letter confirming this from the USDA: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/biotechnology/downloads/reg_loi/brs_air_response_glowing_plant_bioluminescent_a_thaliana.pdf I would hesitate to call this a 'legal loophole' however. The Coordinated Framework, the overarching regulatory framework for biotech products in the USA, clearly states that the process of genetic engineering does not introduce risk to the final product. Therefore it's quite expected that some products should not require regulation. This is only controversial because of the noise around GMO's which as you probably know is based on perceived risk not scientific consensus. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that GMO's are safe.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2016-07-12T17:55:47Z"}]},{"id":4301,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4301","question":"como pido el kit?","author_name":"Lía Noelia Aguirre","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-07-02T17:39:02Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-4301","answers":[{"id":4328,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4328","answer":"Apologies but my Spanish isn't quite up to the task of understanding what you mean with this question. Something about the maker kit which is shipping in beta I suppose?","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-07-06T22:25:32Z"}]},{"id":4272,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4272","question":"Here are some questions I submitted to the Q\u0026amp;A that didn't make it onto the Q\u0026amp;A: How much of the caffeinated apple concept have you developed? Is this a collaboration with Okanagan Specialty Fruits? Their parent company seems like a potential acquirer. What species do you plan on getting the caffeine biosynthesis genes from?\" \"What biosynthetic pathway did you use to make the fragrant moss? I read in a question you answered that you were planning on eventually creating new scents, and I'm curious about how many extra steps it would take to make these.\" \"If I remember correctly you were seeing weird issues in the development of the anthers of the glowing plants. Have these been resolved? Do you know what the cause was?\"","author_name":"Andrew Willoughby","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-06-29T16:46:01Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-4272","answers":[{"id":4282,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4282","answer":"1. Caffeinated apple is just a concept at this stage, because it would likely require FDA it's a lower priority than the non-food applications like air-filter. Intrexon, acquirer of Okanagan, is definitely a potential acquirer. Other potential acquirer's in the future include companies like Ginko or Zymergen who are building biofabs for microbes or the traditional ag-tech companies. 2. We have identified ten scents which can be made in moss with a single gene inserted. We are in the process of filing a provisional patent so until that is done we can't talk too much about the details. 3. We aren't sure what the cause of the sterile anther's was, but we got around it by manual pollination from another plant.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2016-06-30T22:52:04Z"}]},{"id":4222,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4222","question":"Will the early bird contributor's have a say in what fragrance of fragrant moss they receive? All of them sound great except i'm not a fan of patchouli oil. Antony Evans Yes, scent is a very personal thing, all of us like different fragrances. Patchouli is the only scent which we have completed so far, but if investors want to wait for a future fragrance we'll be fine with that. In case you are curious about the future fragrances, these are some from our shortlist which are under consideration for the next flavors: Christmas Pine, Lemon, Fresh Forest, Meditative Spice, Citrus, Mosquito Repellent \u0026amp; Lavender. We choose these primarily based on similarity to our existing genetic/metabolic pathways, over time we'll work on more complex flavors like Rose but these will need more genes so will be in wave III. . - new question - Why does the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qa4Gj1bpmY show a diverse reaction to the smell then. Someone even said it smelled like lavender. I was under the impression that there were at least 3 different scents already in production. I'd prefer the Lavender or meditative spice i think.","author_name":"Wesley I Ross","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-06-25T00:49:43Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-4222","answers":[]},{"id":4197,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4197","question":"Have you looked into growing the plants hydroponically? Or would that be counterproductive as the plants may only be suitable to growing in a hydroponic environment and not in the soil that most consumers would use? Costs could be lower if you invest in the hydroponic shipping crates I have read about.","author_name":"Eugene Richard Belmonte","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-06-24T01:03:51Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-4197","answers":[{"id":4268,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:4268","answer":"Converting from hydroponic to soil has the risk of shocking the plants and killing them, so we prefer to grow on soil all the time.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2016-06-28T22:51:58Z"}]},{"id":3953,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:3953","question":"Hi, I'm a junior Plant Biology/biotechnology major who'd be very interested in working at your company before/concurrently with grad school. I also have been sitting on a project idea that is similar to one of yours and I've done some preliminary work on it. I have two years of experience in a plant molecular biology lab, and I will have 4 years by the time I graduate as well as some internships under my belt. I cannot find the wayup listing to apply (I'm assuming because I don't have a degree yet?) but I'd love to talk to you sometime about your company and if I might fit in there. Is there a way I can contact you about this?","author_name":"Andrew Willoughby","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-06-09T03:22:57Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-3953","answers":[{"id":3968,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:3968","answer":"Please send me a resume to the contact information at www.glowingplant.com/contact","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2016-06-09T18:47:29Z"}]},{"id":3945,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:3945","question":"Did some investors pull out? Can you explain drop in investors count and total amount of investment?","author_name":"Rada Kogan","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-06-08T14:43:24Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-3945","answers":[{"id":3951,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:3951","answer":"It was a WeFunder bug that was counting previously changed or cancelled investments that they updated. Several campaigns had this, you can read more about it here: https://engineering.wefunder.com/bug-fix-progress-bar-4d5eb242afcb#.9mvk7jv3c","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2016-06-09T00:29:41Z"}]},{"id":3934,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:3934","question":"What is TAXA's marketing plan?","author_name":"Drake Edward Hennig","votes":1,"created_at":"2016-06-08T01:03:04Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/taxa#question-3934","answers":[{"id":3973,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:3973","answer":"There's two parts to this, marketing specific products like the moss and marketing the TAXA platform - as I'll discuss it's the product marketing which drives the platform marketing. I'll take these in turn: 1. Marketing products to end consumers - I'll use Fragrant Moss as an example. We plan a three step roll out. The first step will be a flash-sale or crowdfunding campaign to validate the customer segmentation, price and value proposition. This will be promoted through a mix of direct emailing (we have 20,000 people on our mailing lists), social media (up to 40,000 people see our promoted posts on facebook) and a PR campaign. Step two is developing our online sales channel through a mix of social media and affiliate distribution. Because of the high margins our products have we think there is excellent capacity to build a strong business through affiliates (eg bloggers) who want to earn revenue by distributing our product to their existing mailing lists. Finally once we're confident we can scale production we want to get our products into big box retailers (Walmart, Lowes etc). Strong online sales will be the best way to show demand to these stores to get distribution deals with them, we are also starting to have early partnership discussions with groups who have the right relationships to get into these stores. 2. Marketing the platform - disruptive technologies like ours that create new markets require companies to demonstrate holistic end-to-end solutions before big companies sign onto partnerships. So the best way for us to promote the TAXA platform is through development and distribution of our initial products like Glowing Plant and Fragrant Moss. The best leads come inbound from companies that see one of our other products and wonder what it means for their business. We then have a discussion with them about their business needs and goals and go through a process of discovery to prioritize a specific project. Often there are many things we can do with them, with one group we are talking to we started with a list of 40 possible projects and have gone through a process of winnowing that down to prioritize one first project. We also generate leads by giving talks about our technology at conferences, eg Synbiobeta, and by writing thought leadership pieces for blogs. Over time I'd like to build an outbound sales team as well, I do a limited amount of this at the moment. For example we've identified a gene which doubles the rate of growth of lettuce and I've been reaching out to companies building or promoting vertical farming to see if any of them are interested in partnering with us to develop that into a completed product.","author_name":"Antony Evans","votes":0,"created_at":"2016-06-09T19:28:48Z"}]}],"faq":[{"question":"What is the percent carry on this investment?","answer":"There is no carry. We pay 3% of funds raised to WeFunder as a fee, but you keep all returns from your shares."},{"question":"Can you share your existing cap table?","answer":"We can't share all the details on that, but on a fully diluted basis I own 64% and the balance is split between the team and our existing investors. Those investors invested on the same financial terms as we are offering today. You can read all the disclosures we are making here: https://wefunder.com/taxa/form_c"},{"question":"Can you change or update your investment? For instance if you do the minimum $100 today, can you change that a few days later? Also, can you explain a bit about the equity raised? April 2014:$120,000; December 2014: $323,000; and now this round is for an additional $400,000? I...","answer":"Yes, you can change your investment up until a few days before we close the campaign when it will become fixed. Your equity numbers are correct, though we might go over the minimum $400k we are targeting. Here's more information on the planned use of proceeds: $400k will allow us to continue the R\u0026amp;D required to bring our first two products to market, the glowing plant and fragrant moss. The glowing plant requires work to improve the luminosity and implementation of a new method for doing ..."},{"question":"I'm guessing that under Title III equity funding, you don't have to do a formal prospectus. However, I would like to see some sort of financial document that shows a balance sheet before and after funding with a special emphasis on equity and debt before and after. IE total nu...","answer":"Nathanael: have you seen the Form C disclosures and the Q\u0026amp;A section? I think that covers a lot of the information you are asking for. The Form C is here: https://wefunder.com/taxa/form_c and the Q\u0026amp;A is at the bottom of the main page. Happy to answer other questions that you feel aren't addressed there."},{"question":"I like the concept, but what safeguards are in place to ensure that any genetic modification is not spread to wild-type plants and who would be responsible for the aftermath if it did occur?","answer":"We avoid releasing plants which have genes that can provide a selective advantage, for instance we are removing herbicide markers from our plants. This means that while the modification can spread to wild-relatives evolution will work against the genes persisting in the wild."}]}}}