Matthew Markus

Co-Founder & CEO

Seattle, United States

Matthew Markus is the co-founder and CEO of Pembient, a Seattle biotech company he started in January 2015 with biochemist George Bonaci to biofabricate keratin-based horn material as an alternative to poached rhino, elephant, and pangolin products. Markus holds a masters degree from Washington University in St. Louis and previously co-founded HearIt (formerly iHear Network) and worked at Infospace, PrivacyBank.com, and Mendelia, Inc. He has framed Pembients approach as economic disruption of the wildlife-trafficking black market rather than traditional demand-reduction conservation, a stance that put him at odds with groups like the International Rhino Foundation and Save the Rhino. In 2017 he led Pembients PembiCoin initial coin offering, an Ethereum-based token exchangeable for biofabricated horn.

Expertise

• Biotechnology
• Synthetic Biology
• Entrepreneurship
• Genetics
• Biofabrication