Starting a start-up: From hotel manager to growing mushrooms in a spare bedroom
SINGAPORE – It was a rainy Thursday afternoon when I was welcomed into a cosy two-bedroom flat in Pasir Ris.
It seemed like a typical family home preparing for Christmas, but that impression held only until my host, Mr Ryan Ong, showed me how one of the bedrooms was being used.
A bed and an ironing board are the typical items one would expect to find in a spare bedroom, but the 10 sq m space was also taken up by a lab-grade biosafety cabinet, a makeshift humidifier, and a black floor-to-ceiling tent filled with mushrooms bursting out of plastic bags.
I was not expecting what I saw, and this showed on my face.
Mr Ong said: “I guess this is where it all started.”
The “it” would be Fogo Fungi, a Singapore-based agritech start-up incorporated in May 2023 of which he is the chief executive and a co-founder.
He and his co-founders, Mr Jonathan Chen, 28, and Mr Felix-Constantin Dorner, 29, started experimenting with growing mushrooms in Mr Chen’s spare bedroom in February 2023.
Their tinkering led to the development of the company’s proprietary technology, which enables mushrooms to be grown indoors in a temperature-controlled environment that ensures optimal humidity, lighting and ventilation.
Fogo Fungi’s mushrooms are also grown from a specific blend of food waste and sawdust packed in plastic bags that provides the mycelium, or the root system of a mushroom, with sufficient nutrients to grow.
Mr Ong said the idea for Fogo Fungi came about while he was working as a manager at CherryLoft Group, a hospitality chain run by his family.
“I stumbled upon this documentary in 2022 about mushrooms and got so fascinated because, while I know how plants and animals reproduce, I never gave a thought to how mushrooms reproduced,” said the 27-year-old.
Inspired, Mr Ong, who did not have prior education in science or agriculture, then set out to gain the necessary technical knowledge by volunteering at a farm in Lim Chu Kang for three months, before working at a food waste management start-up for a year.
He also watched YouTube videos on mushroom cultivation, and consulted experts from South Korea and the United States.
Mr Ong said: “When I worked at the start-up, I would spend every night after work reading up on mushrooms.
“I also asked a lot of questions while working at the start-up, and found out a lot about which nutrients food waste can provide mushrooms.”
