From Lab to Legacy: Meet Our New Venture Programme Lead

The fungi revolution doesn't happen in petri dishes alone. It happens when brilliant science meets the right support, the right structure, and the right people to help it find its place in the world. That's why we are beyond excited to welcome Camille Accolas as Venture Programme Lead for the venture builder programme our Top 5 Science Entrepreneurs will enter this autumn.

Building at the Intersection

Camille is French by origin, Swiss by address, and, in her own words, genuinely at home nowhere and everywhere. It's that quality that makes her exceptional at what she does. A career spent working across cultures, sectors and systems has given her a rare ability to operate in what she calls the "messy middle": the space between startups and investors, between local communities and global markets, between a bold idea and a business that actually works.

She helped build the world's first venture platform dedicated to nature and biodiversity at Brainforest — growing it from a concept to over 500 global applications, supporting more than 20 teams, and catalysing over a million dollars in early-stage investment for nature-based solutions. Before that, she worked in private equity consulting, biodiversity impact measurement for large corporations, and venture ideation for the biodiversity market. She has seen the full arc of what it takes to turn a vision into something real.

Camille Accolas, Venture Programme Lead The Future is Fungi Award

Now she brings that experience to the fungi space — and we couldn't think of a better fit.

Why Fungi, Why Now

For Camille, the appeal of fungal innovation isn't just scientific — it's strategic. "Fungi innovation is sector-agnostic," she says. "Mycelium's reach spans sustainability, food security, health and wellbeing, and even data management and computation. That means fungi can unlock systemic, complex challenges that cut across entirely different spaces."

That cross-sector potential is exactly what makes this moment so important. The 2025 Future is Fungi Award alone saw applications spanning carbon capture, forestry, energy storage and electronics. As Camille puts it, genome mining and machine learning are revealing entirely new biosynthetic possibilities — and the commercial infrastructure is only beginning to catch up with the science. The opportunity is enormous, and it belongs to the founders who are ready to seize it.

But there's something else that draws Camille to fungi — something more personal. Her current work through Trusty Exchange places the concept of trust at the centre of everything. And mycorrhizal networks, she notes, are a living, physical representation of exactly that: an infrastructure built entirely on reciprocity and mutual support. "That is something I am deeply inspired by," she says. "And curious about."

What She's Building for Our Top 5

Camille joins our venture partner Arc & Arrow — who have built programmes for iGEM, BioInnovation Institute and NATO — to deliver a three-month venture builder experience for our Top 5 Science Entrepreneurs. Her promise to those founders is threefold: a clear structure to track progress, a curated support system of experts and mentors tailored to each team's direction, and an environment designed for cross-pollination. "There is nothing more powerful," she says, "than the support you get from other founders who are navigating the same terrain."

Camille and Susanne at Momentum earlier this year.

Her approach is grounded in the realities that early-stage impact founders actually face. Stress-testing business models. Bridging the gap between a founder's speed and a buyer's timeline. And helping scientists learn to tell their story in language that investors can act on — without losing the depth and rigour that makes their work extraordinary.

She's also clear-eyed about the most common trap. "When founders underestimate how long it actually takes to close a client on the buyer side, it creates a complete disruption of the assumptions embedded in their financial models," she says. Her antidote: written, concrete validation from real future clients, early and often. Know who you're building for — before anything else.

A First Chapter Worth Writing

What excites Camille most about this inaugural programme is exactly that: it's a first. "I love building things and I love firsts," she says. The programme will be shaped alongside the five teams themselves, setting a precedent for what she hopes becomes a long, growing legacy of venture support in the fungal innovation space.

For science founders who have spent years perfecting their research, this is the moment the world gets to catch up. And with Camille in their corner, they won't be navigating it alone.

Welcome to the mycelium network, Camille. We're glad you're here.