Deniz Kent PhD On Raising $90 Million To Build A Technology That Uses Light For Therapeutic and Nutritional Proteins And Gene Therapy

In the world of biotech, where cutting-edge research often remains locked within academic institutions, Deniz Kent, Ph.D., is defying convention. He is the co-founder and CEO of Prolific Machines, a company he created on the radical idea of controlling biology with light.

Prolific Machines has secured capital from top-tier investors like Pledge Ventures, IndieBio, Ki Tua Fund, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Deniz Kent transitioned from academic research to entrepreneurship by founding Prolific Machines, driven by a desire to solve limitations in biological control tools.
• Prolific Machines uses optogenetics—controlling cells with light—to revolutionize biomanufacturing with higher precision and lower costs.
• Due to stronger economics and market demand, the company pivoted from growing cultured meat to manufacturing therapeutic proteins.
• Deniz has raised over $90M from top investors, including IndieBio, Mayfield, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Fonterra.
• He emphasizes raising capital when you don’t need it, to maximize leverage and terms.
• His immigrant background instilled resilience and a strong work ethic that shaped his entrepreneurial mindset.
• Deniz believes all biomanufacturing will become optogenetic due to light’s unmatched control and cost efficiency.

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About Deniz Kent PhD:

Deniz Kent is the co-founder and CEO of Prolific Machines Inc. He has a PhD from King’s College London, where his research was focused on developing a new therapy for patients with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. He is also a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Deniz completed their Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Stem Cell Biology at King’s College London. He also holds a Master’s in Biomedical and Translational Science from King’s College London, where he graduated with distinction.

Deniz’s undergraduate degree is in Cellular and Molecular Medicine from the University of Bristol.

Connect with Deniz Kent PhD:

• LinkedIn
• Crunchbase
• TheOrg
• Success.ai

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: All right, hello everyone, and welcome to the DealMaker Show. Today, we have a really amazing founder joining us. I think we’re going to learn quite a bit from him. He has an incredible story to share.

We’re going to cover building, scaling, financing—you name it. We’ll also talk about his vision for the next five to ten years and how he pivoted the business from growing meat under light to now growing drugs with light.

It’s been quite the journey. He has raised $90 million from some of the top investors, many of whom we’ve featured on the show. We’ll dive into that capital-raising journey too. So, without further ado, let’s welcome our guest today, Deniz Kent. Welcome to the show.

Deniz Kent, PhD: Thanks for having me.

Alejandro Cremades: You’re a child of Turkish immigrants and grew up in London. Take us down memory lane. What was life like growing up for you, Deniz?

Deniz Kent, PhD: I kind of grew up between Turkey and the UK. My dad was in Turkey, and my mom was in the UK. That created a strange worldview for me where I didn’t really belong anywhere.

The idea of nationality, nationalism, and patriotism always felt very strange to me—probably because of my nomadic childhood, constantly going back and forth.

Culturally, I feel more Turkish than British, even though I spent more time in the UK—especially the Turkish immigrant mindset, which was deeply embedded in me from my parents: the idea that you need to work hard and earn your keep.

That mindset has had a significant impact on my life. I think immigrants and children of immigrants generally have to work much harder to find their place in society.

Alejandro Cremades: No kidding. How do you think your worldview and perspective evolved or perhaps differed from other kids because of that early exposure to two different countries?

So many people don’t even get on a plane until they’re in their 40s or 50s—if ever. That must’ve opened up a different lens for you.

Deniz Kent, PhD: Yeah, definitely. I think it made me more grateful. I remember vividly that in Turkey, it’s quite normal to have a six-day workweek. Many people I interacted with worked in restaurants or cafés.

Their standard workday is from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.—that’s the time the establishment is open. But they come in 30 minutes before to set up and leave 30 minutes after closing.

They do this six days a week. It’s just crazy amounts of work. And often, it’s for jobs like working in a kebab shop—serving people.

What really stuck with me is that they do it with a smile on their face and are generally happy to be there, to serve and help others. At the same time, you see people in the U.S. and Europe doing eight-hour jobs that are much more comfortable, yet they complain a lot.

It’s just a different perspective when you grow up in a place with fewer opportunities and more competition. You see how hard life can actually be.

That knowledge has always served me well. Even on my hardest days, I remind myself how privileged I still am compared to so many people I could have been living alongside—if not for the lottery of birth.

Alejandro Cremades: For you, science has obviously played a big role. It has taken many forms and directions. You ended up studying at King’s College and went all the way to a PhD.

How did you get into cellular and molecular medicine, biomedical, and translational science? What led you into this world?

Deniz Kent, PhD: I was always good at science as a kid, but I wasn’t really interested in it—until I got into an actual lab and started doing hands-on work.

I really disliked the idea of reading a textbook and taking whatever’s written as fact. That never appealed to me.

I vividly remember my first job in the lab. That’s when I realized science isn’t just something you read about—it’s something we co-create. That was very exciting for me and marked the start of my excitement around science.

That was well before my PhD, but it planted the seed.

Alejandro Cremades: You started in an immunology lab. How did that path evolve toward pharma or your PhD? Walk us through the sequence of events.

Deniz Kent, PhD: My first project was engineering T cells—a type of immune cell—to infiltrate tumors and destroy them. Tumors are very good at suppressing T cell response, so I was trying to figure out the mechanism and identify any druggable targets.

That led me to pharma, because I was studying how to program or reprogram the immune system—and the pharmaceutical industry, especially GSK, was very interested in that.

GSK invented salbutamol—the inhaler, a blockbuster drug—and they were focused on curing asthma. I started a project with them to develop a single-dose asthma cure based on bispecific antibodies.

That was my first real independent research project, and it got me really excited about doing science. From there, I thought I wanted to run my own academic lab and go all-in on the science path.

That led me to pursue a master’s and then a PhD.

But during my PhD, I encountered a big problem—tools to control biology weren’t very good. Initially, it was just a problem for my own research: I wanted better tools.

Then I realized if I could solve the problem for myself, I could probably solve it for others too.

That kicked off a series of events leading to the realization that light was the best way to control biology—and that eventually all biomanufacturing would become optogenetic.

That insight led to the last six years of building and scaling Prolific Machines—the world’s first optogenetic biomanufacturing company.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s quite a leap—from academia and a PhD to becoming an entrepreneur. How did you go from seeing a problem in research to building a company around it?

Deniz Kent, PhD: It definitely wasn’t my first thought. At first, I considered working at a company and getting them to develop the idea.

I remember talking to a friend who was an entrepreneur, and he told me not to do that. He said established companies have too much inertia. If you bring an idea into one, they likely won’t do anything with it because they already have their own agendas.

That ended up being really sound advice. He said, “If you want to make this happen in the world, you kind of have to do it yourself.”

I’m really grateful for that friend.

Alejandro Cremades: For people listening, can you break down the business model of Prolific Machines?

Deniz Kent, PhD: It’s evolved a lot. Today, we provide pharmaceutical manufacturing services to asset owners who want to make therapeutic proteins cheaper, faster, and more reliably.

In some cases, these are asset owners who have already tried other vendors but couldn’t get the proteins made at all—or not at the necessary concentrations for profitability.

The core issue is a lack of control in the manufacturing process, which leads to these failures.

If you control the cells with light, you get the highest level of control over both time and space, at the lowest possible cost. That unlocks the ability to make pharmaceutical products that couldn’t otherwise be manufactured, across many categories.

Alejandro Cremades: You guys have also adjusted really well to the market—shifting from growing meat with light to growing drugs with light. That’s quite the change.

Deniz Kent, PhD: In terms of the products, yes, they’re very different. But the core technology is very similar.

There are three parts to what we do:

First, genetic tools. We can toggle any protein on or off inside any cell using light-sensitive proteins tethered to different targets. That’s the same whether you’re making meat or drugs.

Second, hardware. We build illuminators that are plug-and-play with existing bioreactor infrastructure—laser-based patterning devices and more. Again, applicable to both use cases.

Third, software. We have algorithms that learn how to “speak biology” by experimenting with different light patterns and getting better at controlling cells over time.

That’s also conserved between pharma and meat.

What’s different is the business side—the sales cycles, customer types, go-to-market strategies. But the science is fundamentally the same.

Alejandro Cremades: And what triggered that pivot? Why did you do a 180?

Deniz Kent, PhD: There were multiple factors. I should start by saying that even though we aren’t actively working on cultured meat right now, I still believe it’s an inevitability.

When you look at the world’s population, the limited resources, and the rising demand for meat, it’s bound to happen.

Deniz Kent, PhD: I think cultured meat is going to plug the gap that I see. And I believe growing meat with light is going to be the best way to do it. That being said, meat is not very expensive relative to some of the other things you can make with biology.

So it makes sense to start with the most expensive thing that you can make with biology, which is therapeutic proteins—these can sell for thousands of dollars per milligram. Compare that to meat—even expensive meat, like Wagyu—which we were making and could sell for about a dollar a gram.

At scale, we believed we could get our cost of goods down to roughly $4.70 per kilogram. But even then, the amount of money you can make per gram is vastly different between meat and therapeutic proteins.

So the plan is to start with the most expensive biological product and work our way down the cost curve, rather than starting at the bottom.

Another factor was that the alt-protein winter was beginning to set in from an investment standpoint—at least in the Western world.

Not so in China, interestingly, where cultured meat has remained extremely hot because Xi Jinping placed it on his list of strategic priorities.

I think that was a very wise move by the Chinese. So yeah, that’s why.

Alejandro Cremades: And what was the capital-raising process like? You guys have raised quite a bit. How much have you raised to date, and what has that journey looked like?

Deniz Kent, PhD: We’ve raised roughly $90 million. The first check came from the world’s leading biotech accelerator, IndieBio. We ended up breaking the IndieBio record for the fastest a company had raised a seed round—just eight days into the batch. That round was led by Mayfield.

Then we broke the IndieBio record again for the fastest Series A raise—roughly six months after the seed round. That round was led by Bill Gates’ climate change fund, Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

Last year, we closed our Series B, which was led by one of the largest dairy conglomerates in the world—Fonterra Group from New Zealand.

Alejandro Cremades: How do you go from raising a seed round to a Series A within just six months? That’s incredible. What would you say has been your biggest lesson when it comes to fundraising?

Deniz Kent, PhD: I think the most important lesson is:

Fundraise when you don’t need to fundraise.

If you don’t need to raise and you’re fundraising anyway, you have a lot of leverage. And if you have leverage, you can get deals done.

But if you’re fundraising from a position of weakness, you may not get the deal done at all. And even if you do, it may not be the deal you want.

So I always aim to fundraise with leverage.

Alejandro Cremades: No kidding. When it comes to vision, investors and employees are ultimately betting on the future you’re building. If you went to sleep tonight and woke up in a world where the future of Prolific was fully realized, what would that world look like?

Deniz Kent, PhD: That’s a good question.

I fundamentally believe that all biomanufacturing will eventually become optogenetic. That was an extremely contrarian position six years ago. It’s becoming less so now, as we generate more data to prove it.

Still, most people would probably disagree.

The reason I believe this is due to the fundamental properties of light. Light is the cheapest possible input into cells. LEDs have been commoditized by consumer electronics, and electricity has been commoditized by civilization.

So relative to every other input, light is by far the cheapest—and will always be the cheapest. That sets the floor for how cheap biomanufacturing can ever become.

But that alone isn’t why I have so much conviction.

Light also gives the highest level of control in biomanufacturing. Nothing beats it in terms of spatial and temporal precision. You can precisely control where and when light is applied—and you can tune it instantly to any desired level.

That’s impossible with traditional inputs like molecules. For example, if you add milk to tea—imagine the tea as your bioreactor—you can’t control where the milk goes or when. It diffuses randomly.

That randomness is a problem in a bioreactor. If you want to switch one thing on, then off, then toggle something else—that’s hard with molecules moving stochastically.

And if you want to create specific patterns in tissues or organs, molecules can’t do that reliably. But with light, you can create highly controlled, specific patterns.

So I believe there’s a multi-trillion-dollar biomanufacturing opportunity. Whoever wins it will have the lowest costs and the highest control.

And I believe Prolific is that company.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s what you want—but what about what you don’t want? What are you afraid of, Deniz? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

Deniz Kent, PhD: There are a couple of things I fear.

One is that with any powerful new technology, it can be used for good—or for harm. So it’s important to ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands or get used for unethical purposes.

The other is that, especially with many of the climate applications we’re working on—not so much the drug applications—I fear that these innovations will only get the attention they deserve once it’s too late.

Take cultured meat, for example. When will it really scale? Probably not until the environment gets so bad that crops begin to fail and it becomes really hard to raise animals outdoors.

When the price of meat skyrockets—possibly combined with famines or zoonotic disease outbreaks—then people might finally realize we should’ve invested earlier in scaling cultured meat.

By then, it may be too late—not for humanity, which will survive—but too late to avoid a lot of suffering, both human and animal.

So I guess my fear is that humans will be reactive rather than proactive. Being proactive would be much better.

Alejandro Cremades: Speaking of being proactive, let’s imagine you hop in a time machine and go back to the moment when you were doing your PhD and first felt that frustration.

Let’s say you could sit down with your younger self—maybe seven, seven and a half years ago—and give yourself one piece of advice before launching a business.

What would that advice be, and why?

Deniz Kent, PhD: I’d say:

Spend less time worrying about what other people think. Just do what you believe is right, and focus on that. Ignore the vast majority of people.

Alejandro Cremades: How do you think worrying about what others think has affected your effectiveness?

Deniz Kent, PhD: I’m someone who likes to be liked. I’m a people pleaser.

I’ve spent a lot of time working through that with executive coaching—learning to accept that the best CEOs aren’t always the most liked.

Sometimes you have to make decisions that investors, employees, or partners don’t like. That doesn’t mean they’re not the right decisions.

That’s part of why it’s a tough job. You often have to do things that make you unpopular, but are still the right thing to do from a fiduciary standpoint.

So yeah, I’ve been learning to suppress those people-pleasing tendencies.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s powerful stuff, Deniz. I really appreciate you for sharing that. For the people listening who want to reach out and say hi, what’s the best way to do so?

Deniz Kent, PhD: Follow me on LinkedIn—Deniz Kent. I also have a Substack where I’ll be writing essays. There’s already one about Prolific, and more will be coming.

I just finished writing a novel that will come out in the next 12–18 months. So follow me there to read more about it.

You can also check out our website: www.prolific-machines.com

If you’re a therapeutic asset owner and want higher titers or lower costs, reach out at: pa******@***************es.com

Or personally at: de***@***************es.com

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing. Deniz, thank you so much for being on the DealMaker Show today. It has been an absolute honor to have you.

Deniz Kent, PhD: Thanks for having me.

*****

If you like the show, make sure that you hit that subscribe button. If you can leave a review as well, that would be fantastic. And if you got any value either from this episode or from the show itself, share it with a friend. Perhaps they will also appreciate it. Also, remember, if you need any help, whether it is with your fundraising efforts or with selling your business, you can reach me at al*******@**************rs.com

 

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