The Production Board is a San Francisco holding company founded by Dave Friedberg in 2017 to reimagine the systems of production that underpin the planet, spanning food, agriculture, biomanufacturing, human health, and life sciences. TPB is not a traditional venture fund. Its primary capital deployment mechanism is a foundry program: the firm identifies emerging scientific breakthroughs, then builds new businesses from scratch around them, assembling teams and providing capital, infrastructure, and market insight to exceptional operators. Foundry creations include cloud bioreactor platform Culture Biosciences, farm microbiome analytics company Pattern Ag, precision plant genetics company Ohalo, synthetic biology company Triplebar, and microbiome nutrition brand Supergut. Alongside the foundry, TPB invests from seed to Series A in outside companies working on the same fundamental problems, targeting order of magnitude improvements in cost, energy, time, or carbon footprint. The holding company raised $300 million in 2021 from investors including Alphabet, Baillie Gifford, BlackRock, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Emerson Collective, and Morgan Stanley's Counterpoint Global. Its sponsored SPAC took Brazilian agricultural inputs distributor Lavoro public on Nasdaq in a $1.2 billion combination in 2023, and portfolio exits include Soylent's acquisition by Starco Brands and Wellio's acquisition by Kraft Heinz.
Portfolio company Soylent, the meal replacement brand where Dave Friedberg served as chairman, was acquired by Starco Brands in 2023.