Ⅰ. Project Introduction

Our Minimum Viable Product (MVP), ProbiEase, is an AI platform for disease-oriented probiotic design that bridges the critical information pathway from scientific research to public awareness. It is specifically engineered to advance both the scientific translation and public understanding of probiotic research.

MVP Overview

With the rapid global expansion of probiotic research, a vast amount of strain-related data is scattered across scientific literature, patents, and industry reports. However, there is currently a lack of an integrated platform capable of simultaneously serving both professional research and public inquiries. Researchers face lengthy processes when screening strains and evaluating disease associations, while general users struggle to easily access reliable daily probiotic usage advice. This information barrier severely limits both the R&D efficiency of probiotic technologies and their scientific popularization.

Problem Statement

ProbiEase was born to meet this need. We have built a high-quality, manually curated probiotic-disease association database, incorporating a four-tier evidence grading system to ensure scientificity and reliability. The platform deeply integrates large language models with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology and innovatively launches a dual-version Q&A system: the Professional Edition serves synthetic biology teams, academic researchers, clinicians, and biotech companies, supporting in-depth strain screening and mechanistic queries; the Basic Edition targets the general public, providing popular science Q&A on daily probiotic use, strain functions, and more, helping to bring scientific knowledge out of the laboratory and benefit the wider public.

Solution Overview

Furthermore, ProbiEase integrates an interactive knowledge graph and structured strain information cards, enabling visual exploration of complex data relationships and supporting one-stop decision-making.

As an intelligent platform connecting scientific research, industry, and the public, ProbiEase is committed not only to enhancing the efficiency of probiotic R&D but also to building a societal-level ecosystem for scientific understanding of probiotics. We are dedicated to reshaping the paradigm of probiotic research and application through data-driven AI technology, allowing professional design and scientific popularization to advance in parallel.

Ⅱ. Market Analysis

1. Overall Market Overview - PEST Analysis

PEST analysis is a strategic framework used to assess the macro-environment of a market. It systematically reveals the fundamental drivers and development prospects of a market through four major external factors: Political, Economic, Social, and Technological.

2. Target Market Segmentation - Market Segmentation Theory

To precisely position and effectively serve our customers, we employ Market Segmentation Theory, dividing the broad market into distinct customer groups with unique needs, characteristics, and behaviors. This allows us to tailor product strategies, marketing messages, and sales channels for each segment, thereby optimizing resource allocation.

Based on this, we have segmented ProbiEase's target market into the following five core groups and visualized them using a Market Segmentation Matrix to clearly illustrate our value proposition.

A. Our Core Target Markets:

(1) Academic Research Institutions: Universities and research institute laboratories focused on microbiome, synthetic biology, or related disease mechanisms research. They require efficient tools for literature review, hypothesis generation, and preliminary strain screening to accelerate the research process.

(2) Biotech/Pharmaceutical Companies: R&D departments of companies developing live biotherapeutic products, next-generation probiotics, or microbiome-based therapies. They are high-value users of the Professional Edition, with needs centered around engineered strain design, mechanistic analysis, and pre-clinical evidence support to reduce R&D risks.

(3) Clinicians & Nutritionists: Healthcare professionals on the front lines who need to provide patients with evidence-based probiotic recommendations. They require quick access to evidence-based strain recommendations, dosage information, and clinical study summaries to create personalized regimens.

(4) Probiotic Manufacturers: Manufacturers of probiotic products for the consumer market. They need to identify strains with specific health claims and scientific backing for new product development, product positioning, and marketing.

(5) Health-Conscious General Public: Consumers with high health literacy who actively seek probiotic knowledge to guide daily consumption. They are the primary users of the Basic Edition, with a core need for simple, trustworthy, science-based answers that bypass commercial hype.

B. Market Segmentation Visualization

To intuitively display the strategic position of each market segment, we introduce a classic Two-Dimensional Matrix for analysis. The two dimensions of this matrix are:

(1) Professional Complexity: The user's requirement for depth, accuracy, and cutting-edge nature of information.

(2) Business Value: The direct revenue potential and long-term strategic value offered by the segment.

Plotting the target markets against these dimensions gives the following strategic overview:

C. Matrix Interpretation & Strategic Focus:

(1) Strategic Core (Upper-Right Quadrant): Biotech/Pharmaceutical Companies and Probiotic Manufacturers reside here. They have complex needs and the highest business value, making them the core customers and primary revenue source for the ProbiEase Professional Edition. Our strategy is to build deep partnerships and provide customized solutions.

(2) Ecological Foundation (Lower-Right Quadrant): Academic Research Institutions have high professional demands but lower direct business value. They are thought leaders and future collaborators, using the Professional Edition via academic licenses. Our strategy is to cultivate these relationships, validate the platform's value through their use, and attract high-end corporate clients.

(3) Value Extension (Upper-Left Quadrant): The Health-Conscious General Public forms a large user base. While individual value is low, the aggregate volume is significant. They are the main users of the Basic Edition and can create potential advertising or data value through traffic. The strategy is to provide an excellent free experience to build brand trust.

(4) Key Influencers (Middle-Upper Region): Clinicians and Nutritionists bridge the gap between research and application. They possess moderate professional needs and business value. The strategy is to serve them with the Professional Edition (via institutional procurement or individual subscriptions), positioning them as opinion leaders who influence patient and public consumption decisions.

D. Summary

Through the above segmentation and visualization, we have defined a three-dimensional market strategy: using high-business-value B2B clients (Biotech/Pharma) as the revenue core, leveraging high-professional-demand academic institutions as the innovation source, and building market influence and a data ecosystem based on the broad general public and professional users.

3. Competitive Landscape Analysis - Competitive Positioning Matrix

To clearly define ProbiEase's unique position in the market, we employ a Competitive Positioning Matrix for analysis. This matrix intuitively reveals the positioning of existing market players and the differentiated segment occupied by ProbiEase, based on the two dimensions of "Product Specialization" and "User Coverage Breadth".

A. Competitive Positioning Matrix Visualization

The following chart plots key competitors and ProbiEase within the same analytical framework:

B. Competitor Analysis

(1) Direct Competitors

Other Probiotic Databases or AI-assisted R&D Platforms: Currently, there are few players in this field, and their solutions are relatively immature, often limited to data listing without deep integration or intelligent interactive capabilities.

(2) Indirect Competitors

Traditional Research Tools: Represented by PubMed and Google Scholar. They are powerful sources of information but are essentially general-purpose tools, not specialized solutions. Users must manually perform tedious information retrieval, screening, interpretation, and correlation analysis, unable to quickly obtain structured knowledge and insights tailored for probiotic design.

Commercial Databases: Some microbial genomic databases (e.g., NCBI, KEGG). They provide rich genomic data but are highly specialized at the molecular level, lacking the bridge connecting gene functions to disease symptoms and clinical applications, making them difficult to use for those without a bioinformatics background.

Science Pop Platforms & General Search Engines: These are the primary channels for the public to access information. They have very broad coverage but very low specialization. Content quality is uneven, often filled with commercial advertisements and unverified claims, lacking scientific evidence support, and cannot meet the needs for reliable decision-making.

C. ProbiEase's Differential Advantages & Strategic Positioning

As shown in the matrix above, ProbiEase successfully occupies the unique quadrant of "High Specialization" and "High User Coverage Breadth". This positioning reflects its core competitive strengths:

(1) A Unique Integrated Platform: We are a platform that deeply integrates a "Professional-grade Probiotic-Disease Evidence Database", "AI-driven Natural Language Interaction", and a "Multi-tier User Coverage Strategy". This allows us to meet the depth required by the professional market while also addressing the breadth needs of the mass market through a user-friendly interface.

(2) Evolution from "Tool" to "Solution": Compared to tools that provide raw data, ProbiEase provides "Insights" and "Decision Support". We not only tell users "what data exists" but also explain "what this data means" and "how to act" through AI and knowledge graphs.

(3) Building an Ecological Loop: By serving the "source of innovation" in academia, the "conversion backbone" in industry, and the "end-users" in the public, ProbiEase builds a complete probiotic innovation ecosystem. This allows knowledge to flow seamlessly from the laboratory to society, which is unmatched by any single-function competitor.

Ⅲ. Business Model

We use the Lean Canvas to clearly outline the business logic of ProbiEase, ensuring its feasibility and sustainability.

Lean Canvas

The Lean Canvas provides a comprehensive overview of our business model, highlighting key elements such as problem-solution fit, unique value proposition, customer segments, channels, revenue streams, cost structure, key metrics, and unfair advantage.

Ⅳ. Stakeholder Engagement

Our project development is closely linked to several key stakeholder groups. We maintain continuous engagement with these groups through customized strategies to ensure our research aligns with cutting-edge science while addressing real-world needs. Among these, our collaboration with Shaoxing Yousai Biotechnology Co., Ltd. serves as a prime example of deep industry-academia-research integration.

1. Industry-Academia-Research Collaboration

Yousai Biology, as a leading enterprise in the gut microbiome field with full-chain capabilities from testing and intervention to live biotherapeutic drug development, is a crucial industry mentor and sponsor for our project. Our interactions with Yousai primarily manifest at the following levels:

A. Industry Insight and Needs Validation

During the initial project phase, through in-depth study of Yousai's business (such as gut microbiota testing, FMT, and functional probiotic product development), we validated the core pain points in current probiotic R&D and application:

(1) Blindness in Strain Screening: Traditional methods struggle to quickly and accurately identify strains with specific functions (e.g., anti-inflammatory, uric acid-lowering) from the vast microbial diversity.

(2) Empirical Consortium Design: The design of synthetic microbial consortia often relies on trial and error, lacking quantitative and intelligent tools like the "rational配方 design platform" pursued by Yousai.

(3) Bottleneck in Translating Data to Products: A common industry challenge is converting the massive data generated from metagenomic testing into actionable strain intervention strategies.

This directly confirms the necessity of the ProbiEase platform -- we were born to solve these efficiency bottlenecks.

B. Technology Pathway and Concept Alignment

To our delight, the design concept of ProbiEase aligns perfectly with the core technology platform of Usail. The company is now focusing on "intestinal microbiota testing services and risk assessment", offering individuals accurate microbiota profiling and health-risk alerts through high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatic analysis. This front-line industrial practice confirms the validity and foresight of our chosen "AI + database" technical route and significantly strengthens our confidence in translating the project into real-world impact.

C. Future Collaboration and Technology Transfer Outlook

We regard Yousai as one of our project's most important potential future partners and technology application channels. Our planned collaboration includes:

(1) Data Empowerment: Utilizing the ProbiEase platform as an intelligent information portal for their R&D department, assisting their researchers in quickly accessing strain evidence and accelerating the screening of new functional probiotics.

(2) Model Validation: Leveraging Yousai's valuable clinical strain library and real patient data for model training and validation, continuously improving the accuracy of our AI predictions.

(3) Co-development: Exploring the integration of ProbiEase's strain design capabilities with Yousai's high-density fermentation and high-viability formulation technologies to co-develop next-generation efficient, customized probiotic therapies.

2. Interaction with Other Stakeholders

Academic Circle: Through the iGEM competition platform, we engage with global synthetic biology teams to continuously iterate and improve our project.

Patients and the Public: Through targeted educational systems designed for different groups, we are committed to bridging the gap between cutting-edge scientific research and public understanding.

Potential Investors and Entrepreneurs: By crafting this business plan, we are actively engaging with the broader business community to showcase the project's commercial potential.

Ⅴ. Development Roadmap

Our development roadmap is designed to progressively transform ProbiEase from an iGEM competition project into an indispensable AI-driven platform in the probiotic R&D field.

Roadmap Timeline

The roadmap outlines our strategic milestones from the initial iGEM competition phase through to platform maturation and market expansion, ensuring systematic progression towards our long-term vision.

Ⅵ. Funding Requirements

To accelerate the development and market launch of the ProbiEase platform and achieve the milestones outlined in our development roadmap, we plan to initiate our first round of external funding.

1. Funding Target & Equity Structure

Funding Round Target: RMB 3 Million

Equity Dilution: 10%

Post-Money Valuation: RMB 30 Million

2. Use of Funds

The raised capital will be allocated to the following core areas to ensure rapid platform iteration and market capture:

(1) Technology R&D & Platform Optimization (40%): For AI model API costs, server infrastructure, continuous database curation and expansion, and development of advanced features like the "Strain Design Simulator".

(2) Team Building & Talent Acquisition (30%): To attract and build a top-tier, interdisciplinary team specializing in AI algorithms, software engineering, and synthetic biology.

(3) Marketing & User Acquisition (20%): For participation in international academic conferences and industry trade shows, and for targeted marketing campaigns aimed at academic institutions and enterprise clients.

(4) Operations & Legal Affairs (10%): For platform daily operations, intellectual property (IP) application and maintenance, and other administrative expenses.

3. Goals for This Funding Round

With this round of investment, we will achieve:

(1) Product Maturation: Officially launch the Professional Edition SaaS product and secure at least 50 paying enterprise or academic institution customers.

(2) Technology Barrier Establishment: Expand our probiotic-disease evidence database to an industry-leading scale and preliminarily integrate metabolomics data.

(3) Market Validation: Demonstrate the core value of ProbiEase in enhancing R&D efficiency through early customer success stories, laying a solid foundation for the next funding round.

We sincerely welcome Venture Capital firms and Strategic Investors with experience in the life sciences or enterprise software sectors to connect with us. Let's jointly build the intelligent decision engine for probiotic research and development.

Ⅶ. Company Vision

Our vision is to reshape the paradigm of probiotic R&D and build a world-leading, data-driven ecosystem for probiotic discovery and design.

We firmly believe that the next generation of life science innovation will be driven by data and artificial intelligence. ProbiEase is not merely a tool, but an intelligent hub connecting "Data, Algorithms, and Bio-manufacturing." We are committed to:

For Researchers, making ProbiEase the first platform they instinctively open when starting any probiotic-related project, transforming tedious literature review into efficient intelligent exploration.

For Industry, becoming the indispensable decision-support system in the field of probiotic and live biotherapeutic product development, significantly reducing R&D costs and failure rates, and accelerating the translation of scientific discoveries into accessible therapies.

For the Public, becoming their authoritative source for the most reliable and understandable probiotic scientific knowledge, ending information chaos and empowering everyone to manage their microbiome health based on science.

Vision Statement

Our vision extends beyond immediate product development to creating a sustainable ecosystem that bridges scientific research, industry application, and public education, ultimately contributing to global health and wellbeing through advanced probiotic solutions.