Could real meat grown without animals be cheaper than traditional farming? And could Australia become one of the best places in the world to launch it?

In this episode of Pick My Brain, Alan Jones is joined by Paul Bevan, founder of cultivated meat startup Magic Valley, to explore how second-generation food tech is reshaping the economics and investability of cultivated meat. Paul pitches Magic Valley’s approach to growing real meat from animal cells, without livestock, and explains why minced products like lamb and pork are the logical first step to reaching commercial scale.

Alan and Paul unpack why earlier cultivated meat companies struggled, how advances in equipment and cell culture media have dramatically lowered costs, and what that means for investors assessing deep tech risk today. They also dig into Australia’s surprisingly strong regulatory framework for novel foods, Magic Valley’s decision to launch locally first, and how to raise deep tech capital without burning hundreds of millions of dollars.

Along the way, Alan shares practical advice on investor communication, momentum, and signalling progress, while Paul reflects on the challenge of telling one coherent story to impact investors, deep tech funds, and commercial partners at the same time.

If you are building in food tech, climate tech, deep tech, or navigating complex investor messaging, this episode is packed with hard-earned insight.

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How are you, fans of the show? You might have noticed there’ve been no new episodes for a while. Honestly, I didn’t really want to say anything earlier, but I’m starting to feel like I owe you an explanation.

Earlier this year, I got a cancer diagnosis. That sucked. But I had surgery at the end of September, and it looks like it was successful. So maybe now I update my LinkedIn profile to say “cancer survivor” — I don’t know.

With all that going on, I dropped a few things, and new episodes of Pick My Brain was one of them. And here we are in December. I feel much, much better than I did a few months ago, but that break in recording means we won’t have any new episodes for you until early January.

The good news is we’re recording again now. We’ve made some big improvements to the show, and I hope you’re going to love what we have in store for you starting January 2026.

If you need more listening in the meantime, I highly recommend First Check, Perspective X, In The Blink of AI, and our newest show Oversubscribed with angel investor Brendan Hill, which goes deep into the stories behind Australia’s best performing startups.

Anyway, I hope you have a safe, happy, and fun summer break. I hope it’s full of friendship, love, and good times. And I hope your startups are doing well too.

See you in January.

Episode Summary

Carbon credits are meant to help the world fight climate change, but the reality is messy: project developers are still managing everything in spreadsheets, emails, and PDFs, making credits slow, opaque, and hard to trust.

In this episode of Pick My Brain, Alan Jones sits down with Allen Fan, co-founder of CarbonHQ, a B2B SaaS startup building the operating system for carbon project developers. Together they unpack how CarbonHQ is cutting issuance time from months to weeks, why credibility and transparency matter as much as climate impact, and what it really takes to sell software in a market still run on paper.

Allen also shares how he met his co-founder through a layoff talent directory, why sales never came naturally to him, and how repeated “reps” are helping him get better. Alan Jones dives in with advice on pricing strategy, investor communications, and building trust through authentic storytelling, the real ingredients behind startup growth.

Whether you’re tackling climate tech, B2B SaaS, or just wrestling with sales as a founder, this episode is packed with practical takeaways.

Time Stamps

01:15 – What CarbonHQ really does (and why it’s not carbon accounting)

03:40 – The pitch: fixing carbon credit issuance with software

06:15 – Co-founder story: meeting through a layoff talent directory

08:20 – Breaking down CarbonHQ’s 3-year journey and first $100K ARR

09:40 – Learning sales as a founder who isn’t “a salesperson”

12:10 – Why trust is the foundation of every sale

14:20 – Early-stage websites, product storytelling, and pricing psychology

19:55 – How to think about pricing when you don’t know your market yet

20:30 – Raising capital vs. focusing on revenue growth

23:40 – Why regular investor updates and pitching on stage build credibility

Resources Mentioned

🎙 Ask Alan a Question - https://www.speakpipe.com/PickMyBrain

👨‍💻 Allen Fan – https://www.linkedin.com/in/allen-fan-618b9864/

🌏 CarbonHQ – http://carbonhq.earth/

Mentioned in this episode:

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