New Materials

Since the industrial revolution, advancements in manufacturing have enabled mass consumerism to grow exponentially. However consumers are quickly becoming aware of their impact on the environment, demanding more from brands. Enter synthetic biology. Soon we will be able to produce a large share of the global economy's physical materials, without compromising on performance and sustainability. Insempra bridges the gap between synbio R&D and scalable, industrial manufacturing for brands. We believe the Insempra team can accelerate the creation of sustainable alternatives to traditional materials and we’re excited to back them on their journey.

Nanotechnology has for decades been heralded as one of the most promising areas of science and industry. As we increase our capacity to control materials at the nanoscale we will be able to take advantage of countless technological advances that will literally reshape our physical world and accelerate planetary sustainability. Yet until now, nanotechnology has massively underdelivered on its promise. VSPARTICLE, a spin-out of TU Delft in 2014, has over the past six years created a paradigm-changing platform that is a scalable source of nanoparticulate material with broad applicability for scientific, engineering and manufacturing applications. We're excited to watch the VSPARTICLE team forge ahead in this space.

Epoch is developing a computational approach to discover and optimise enzymes, which are natural machines that speed up chemical and biological processes. Several industrial and biomedical processes have found enzymes to be extremely valuable in speeding up reaction times, reducing energy requirements and enabling previously impossible reactions. Epoch will eventually develop and commercialise enzymes for several specific needs and use cases including accelerating plastic decomposition.

Uluu’s products act like plastic but are made from seaweed, not fossil fuels. They’re strong, lightweight and waterproof, while being truly biodegradable and biocompatible. Uluu is naturally produced via fermentation. This process uses saltwater microbes fed with farmed seaweed—a regeneratively-grown feedstock that can be scaled to entirely replace the fossil fuels used to make 400 million tonnes of plastic each year, all while sequestering carbon and bioremediating our oceans. Uluu can be directly substituted for plastic in existing manufacturing equipment, including to produce fibres that can replace polyester in textiles.

Modern Synthesis is a biotech company bringing life to new materials. Their patent-pending process works with bacteria to produce an entirely new class of nanocellulose-based materials which offer performance without plastics and aesthetics without animal inputs. Not only does this allow them to create lower-impact, high-value alternatives that can displace animal and plastic-based textiles, but it also enables greater aesthetic variability for their customers. They’re not just a leather replacement, they’re unlocking novel aesthetics and new performance possibilities that reimagine what natural materials are capable of.