How Arturo Elizondo and The Every Company Hatched a Plan to Develop the World’s First Liquid Egg Without the Chicken

When Arturo Elizondo was in his twenties, he was poised to advance his career in the federal government—a logical step given his Harvard undergraduate degree in government and comparative politics. However, during a call with his mentor, he revealed that his true passion was in sustainability and making a significant impact to transform the food system. While he had some experience working at the USDA, he felt that tackling these issues from a policy standpoint wasn’t enough. Heeding his mentor’s advice, Arturo made a bold decision: he passed up the federal job and booked a one-way ticket to Silicon Valley. There, in an unfamiliar environment, he sought to connect with innovators in the burgeoning food tech sector.

After arriving in the Bay Area, he met David Anchel, a cell and molecular biologist. Together, they co-founded Clara Foods, now The Every Company, with the goal of developing a vegan egg alternative that consumers, chefs and companies would want to use and consume. The company started with $50,000 in funding and has since raised over $230 million, and attracted celebrity investors including actress Anne Hathaway. Arturo has been featured in several national media outlets, including on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and was honored by officials in his hometown of Laredo, Texas, with the keys to the city.

Using precision fermentation, the company launched two flagship ingredients, the Every Egg and Every Protein, alternatives to egg yolks and egg whites that are completely animal-free yet retains the flavor, binding, foaming and mixing qualities of real eggs. Skeptical about how the Every Egg tastes? Michelin-starred chef Daniel Humm endorsed the product when he debuted the Every Egg in dishes and cocktails at a special dinner at his restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, last year. Today, The Every Company has partnerships with Ingredion and AB InBev and is looking at the next stage in its growth.

We spoke with Arturo about the company’s next steps, the importance of following your dreams and his personal reflections on National Hispanic Heritage Month as a Latino CEO in biotechnology.

What was the catalyst for developing a vegan alternative for the egg?

It wasn’t necessarily about the vegan alternative as much as strategically the fact that animal protein is a $2 trillion market. Out of the three multi-hundred-billion-dollar animal protein markets—meat, dairy and eggs—eggs had the best fundamentals and there was just a huge pain point. Eggs are an industry that has a major B2B ingredient component.

What most people and companies don’t realize is that eggs are not just a tasty product. They’re a functional ingredient for many things. They bind and gel in ways that almost nothing else can. They’re incredibly hard to replace because of the functionality. And the companies [we help] don’t necessarily use them because they want to, they use them because they have to. The price of eggs is also incredibly volatile.

Our thinking was we can use fermentation to make proteins. The proteins are the ones that drive the functionality of the egg. There’s a large swath of the world’s biggest food companies that are begging for solutions like this. That’s why it made sense for us to start with the egg.

Can you provide us with an overview of how your company uses fermentation to develop a product that binds, foams and cooks like an egg?

Biotechnology is used in some shape or form for protein production. The industry has been making animal proteins using fermentation for 40 years. For example, Genentech was the first company [using recombinant DNA technology] to make insulin, a process that replaced the need to extract insulin from pigs. Instead of sourcing insulin from animals, it could be made through microbial fermentation. Seeing how that has become the de facto way of making protein-based medicines and therapeutics, we thought, ‘If you can use this technology to make medicines, can we use the technology to make food?’ We use the same exact technology—we insert the DNA sequence that codes for egg proteins into the yeast. The yeast ferments it the way that it normally would, then converts that sugar into protein. Our yeast actually comes from a black oak tree in California that naturally is able to make high amounts of protein.

And because they are producing egg proteins, they have the foaming and binding functionalities that are unique to the egg. Why try and bio-prospect thousands of proteins to find the ones that are most like the egg, when we already know which proteins within the egg already drive all of that functionality?

The beauty of our process is that we are able to keep the goodness of the egg, which is the protein. That’s where the functionality and the nutrition lie in terms of the digestibility of the product.

You shared in a video interview with Forbes that you moved to Silicon Valley without having any biotech experience. Can you delve more into the company’s origin story? What happened after you arrived in town?

I met my co-founders, [David Anchel and Isha Datar] at a food tech conference—one of the founders of Hampton Creek actually invited me—and I sat with Isha Datar from New Harvest (a nonprofit that helps advance the ecosystem). She introduced me to Dave, who was finishing up his Ph.D. in microbiology and went to the Bay Area because he wanted to advance something in the food space. They had this crazy idea of making eggs without chickens. This was exactly what I was looking for.

I realized this technology in the life sciences has so much potential to make huge impacts beyond the industry. How do we reap the rewards of these amazing technologies that have been perfected and optimized through this discipline? How do we make it accessible and apply it to other industries? I just found that so incredibly exciting.

We got together and created a business plan—a two- or three-page document—and technology plan. We applied to IndieBio through SOSV and were the first company Bay Area company to get funded from this program. They gave us 50K in cash and three months of lab space and said, ‘Build a prototype and see if you can stay alive after that.’ [Laughs]. Through that, we met some amazing investors such as Scott Banister.

We eventually developed a prototype, a meringue. That’s when we said, ‘this is possible.’

What were your biggest challenges during the company’s first years?

In terms of R&D, one was the biology side of things: there was a lot of work that we needed to do with these microorganisms. And then second was the formulation. Once you make these proteins and make them really well, you then have to create a product around them. In terms of the hardest part, it was pushing these yields to the absolute limit. Our focus has been on affordability, and our big challenge was if we could get this technology to be efficient enough to be accessible to the food industry.

On the formulation, we did have to do a lot of taste tests and the challenge was the fact that eggs are in so many food products—cookies, cakes and they’re also in wine. We wanted to create something that could work across applications. For the Every Egg that we launched at Eleven Madison Park, that was a very tough order. But we also had to get it in front of chefs as quickly as possible, to get that iterative feedback.

Do you think this company could have been established outside of California, or was it uniquely possible only in California?

It had to be here. This is the only place in the world where people are willing to fund crazy ideas! [Laughs]. When I first moved out here in 2014, there were a couple of [food tech] companies, like Hampton Creek and Impossible, that had just gotten funded. There was a sense that this part of the world has an ecosystem in place—especially an investor ecosystem—of funding crazy ideas. And that ‘crazy’ can be good. That’s what really made me think about coming out here.

You’re focused on the B2B model right now vs. direct to consumers. Why go that route?

I grew up in Texas and I’m Mexican by heritage. I grew up eating my two-egg breakfast and having barbecues every Sunday, like any good Texan. I knew that ultimately, we weren’t going to market our way to a better food system—we had to fundamentally have better products that actually could compete and win over consumers because they’re amazing in their own right.

We didn’t want to only sell to people who specifically wanted something more sustainable or more ethical, that’s not going to move the needle. How do we access everyone? That’s part of why we are named ‘Every’—we wanted to make our proteins accessible to every human in every corner of the Earth. And the only way to do that is by making products that win over everyone.

Is there a long-term goal of eventually having the Every Egg in the grocery store?

Yes, absolutely. But the product likely won’t be labeled as Every. We also like working with egg companies and large companies that are selling to grocery stores globally. Why reinvent the wheel when there are companies that are already doing that so well? We can get to impact much faster by partnering and we have a very focused partnering model.

Our Every Egg that you would see as a liquid egg, for example, that likely would be with a company that wants to launch in retail and we stay focused on supplying the intel of the protein. That is really our business model. We don’t make the whole computer; we want to make the ‘chip’—the proteins that power all of those products in grocery stores.

What’s your favorite way to consume your product?

We have a soluble protein that can be added to water, tea or coffee, and it doesn’t have any sugar or artificial sweeteners. I drink a lot of sparkling water at work and my favorite way to use it is to add it to that.

What is your biggest challenge right now?

Scaling, specifically around biological solutions. It just takes time. It’s not like software, where physical products are made and then the manufacturing is onboarded. We have to make sure that we have the right manufacturing partners. That’s currently our biggest focus for the company, because that’s what truly unlocks impact at scale.

This month is National Hispanic Heritage Month. What does this celebration mean to you and why is it so important that we honor it?

To me, National Hispanic Heritage Month is about celebrating our community’s achievements, increasing visibility and ensuring everyone feels they belong. In an industry like biotechnology, which still struggles with significant underrepresentation, this month serves as a critical reminder for all life science companies to build pathways for diverse talent.

I never planned to work in biotech or start a company in Silicon Valley—I became a founder by accident, driven by the desire to solve a problem. I didn’t initially see these paths as options because I didn’t know anyone in these spaces who looked like me. Silicon Valley felt distant, almost like something from a TV show.

This month is about showing people from all backgrounds the potential of this field and the impact they can have. I want everyone to understand that you don’t have to look a certain way to succeed—especially in biotechnology, where we have the power to change the world. Everyone should feel welcome to be a part of that change. That’s why honoring National Hispanic Heritage Month is so important.

Lastly, what advice do you have for young people entering the industry today?

If you care deeply about an issue, don’t wait until you feel ‘ready.’ I was once stuck in analysis paralysis—trying to keep my options open, which held me back from just taking the plunge. The truth is, there’s never a perfect time to begin. Get in the arena. Roll in the mud. Trial by fire. Take that leap. It made all the difference for me, and it will for you too.