We're hoping to win Google's 10^100 project. We truly believe that our biological materials can help people live healthier lives, and build more energy efficient communities while drastically reducing their environmental impact. For this competition, we had to cram all of our ideas into this 30 second video:
Winning this contest would rocket our little startup company towards full scale manufacturing of this world changing material. Public voting narrows the field to 25, and then a Google advisory board of experts narrows it down to 1-5 winners. So please watch the video, rate it, post comments and vote!
Project 10^100
Come see us at the Great Northeast Home Show
Next weekend we'll be publicly debuting Greensulate™ at The Great Northeast Home Show. If you can make it to Albany on February 6th, 7th or 8th, come talk to us at our booth! We'll be displaying samples of our latest glue-free structural insulating panel (SIP) prototypes, as well as a range of our materials that are perfect for door cores, shipping heavy items, and many other product applications relevant to home builders and their suppliers.
When? February 6-8: Friday 4pm-9pm, Saturday 10am-7pm, Sunday 10am-5pm
Where? Booth #606 at the Times Union Center in Albany, NY
We're #1!... and lots more exciting media attention
Springwise, a popular european entrepreneurship blog recently listed us #1 in their top ten list of 2008's eco and sustainability ideas! You can see the post here.
Planet Green, the new division of the Discovery Channel just featured an interview with our CEO Eben, that you can check out here. We were also mentioned on perfect cube, a design & innovation blog, and earth911, a blog where "everyday is earth day."
In other news, we are growing so fast, that we are currently seeking a new building that will allow us to expand and build our pilot production line.
Greensulate™ in the walls
Art meets engineering...
The newly remodeled artist in residence house at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is insulated with Greensulate™! Here, a section is exposed on permanent display at the entrance to the building. Ed, our COO and insulation model, shows off the new healthy and efficient wall section.
Catching up
Well, we have been a little out of touch since this fall when we picked up some great exposure and funding in the Netherlands, things have continued to cruise along and with it being the new year this seems like a good time for an update!
Negative Volume, our packaging product, and biodegradable answer to that infuriating expanded polystyrene, took first place in the Keesah Studios "Make some Green Competition". This product, based on the same technology used in our Greensulate™ insulation, has a very low carbon footprint, is grown indoors in the dark, and can be composted in your garden, or recycled once it gets to the consumer. Were looking for more partners in this space, so if you ship heavy things, and want to get away from Styrofoam™, drop us a line!
We also have some great news regarding our team. We hired a brilliant recent graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Sam Harrington, who will be joining us as Environmental Director and Design Engineer. We also want to welcome Allison Poetzsch, another recent RPI graduate, who will be joining us full time to assist in the lab with Dawn Harfmann, a student at Skidmore College.
We also brought Sue Van Hook, a skilled mycologist and teacher at Skidmore College, onto the team full time for the spring. We are thrilled to have her and the fungi already seem happier.
Were excited for another great year, and can't wait to share more exciting steps forward as we keep developing radical alternatives to replace those outmoded synthetics!
Ecovative wins 500,000 Euro Prize (750,000 USD)!
ECOVATIVE wins $750,000 PICNIC GREEN CHALLENGE PRIZE—International Competition Challenges Entrepreneurs to Reduce CO2 with New Products or Services for Consumers
Troy, NY (October 2, 2008)— Ecovative was awarded the coveted prize in Amsterdam last week, with an international jury endorsing Ecovative’s vision that their Greensulate™ material could revolutionize an entire industry and simultaneously decrease carbon emissions on a globally significant scale. The jury noted that Ecovative “combined creativity and sustainability with true entrepreneurship.” Greensulate TM is an insulating material that provides competitive performance to existing products, while consuming five times less energy to produce, and generating ten times lower CO2 emissions.
Ecovative Design, LLC., captured the 2008 PICNIC Green Challenge in Amsterdam last week. The annual international creative competition, sponsored by the Dutch Postcode Lottery and cross-media event PICNIC, challenges entrepreneurs worldwide to create greenhouse-gas-reducing products or services and encourages consumers to adopt a sustainable lifestyle. Lodewijk Asscher, Amsterdam's Deputy Mayor presented Ecovative with the €500,000 (US$750,000) prize that will assist the U.S. startup in executing its vision.
Greensulate™, is a direct replacement for expanded polystyrene (EPS) products. Composed of renewable agricultural waste resources and mycelium fibers, Greensulate™ is produced without petroleum or light, requires no significant heat, is non-allergenic, and is less expensive to produce than foam products. It can be produced at room temperature, in a wide range of benign environments, and is less expensive to produce than petroleum based foam products. “This win is a great validation of Ecovative's technology and an important validation of our vision to provide a sustainable alternative to synthetics, such as plastics and foams, which can be produced locally, around the world," said Eben Bayer, CEO and cofounder of Ecovative Design.
In addition to functioning as an insulator, initial testing to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Standards has shown Greensulate™ to have a greater compressive and flexural strength than EPS, and also act as a firewall. Ecovative will continue material optimization and compliance testing throughout 2009 with a target date set for mid-2010 to offer a commercially available insulation product. Other Greensulate™ based materials, including Negative Volume packaging, will be available sooner in mid 2009.
"The PICNIC Green Challenge is an amazing event, uniting creative thinkers from around the world in a common cause—drastically reducing CO2 emissions and energy consumption through innovation. This award will help us to continue to build our team and expertise, while also advancing our material development schedule," added Bayer.
About Ecovative Headquartered in Troy, New York, Ecovative is a biomaterials start-up company pioneering new ways of thinking about the products we use. Its first product, Greensulate™, is a direct replacement to expanded polystyrene products with cross-industry applications including recreational, packaging and home building. The company was founded in 2007 and is lead by Eben Bayer, Gavin McIntyre and Ed Browka, graduates of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
For more information on the Green Challenge visit: http://www.greenchallenge.info/web/show/id=68954/contentid=3041
Product Teasers
Biodegradable Greensulate™ coolers. Just like the EPS coolers you might see at Walmart and gas stations, but grown from renewable, sustainable sources.
(Photo Credit - Tim Calabro)
Ecovative participates in Albany New Energy Symposium
Yesterday Ecovative had the honor of participating in the New Energy Symposium. We presented with a variety of other teams to a panel of VC's including folks from Kleiner Perkins, Earthrise capital, and CVP Ventures. We placed in the top three teams which means we will have the opportunity to present again in Colorado this year at the NREL (national renewable energy lab) clean energy presentations.
The Symposium was a great experience and we saw some other fantastic presentations, including one from Jon Perry of ZeroPoint Clean Tech, they make a skid based "mini" gasifier system for transforming biomass into electricity and liquid fuel.
SEM imaging of Fungi
Our Mycologist, Sue Van Hook from Skidmore, has been doing some amazing SEM work lately and has agreed to share a few of the shots from her recent studies. Photo credit goes to Marc Toso of Skidmore College who handled the imaging.
The photos show the mycelium of a number of different types of fungi we are working with- magnifications range from 10-100 µm (approximately 100µm for every square inch on your screen, give our take a few microns). Everyones favorite benchmark at this scale is the width of a human hair which averages about 80 µm.[T
hough I just learned from wikipedia that I could have also have said about 1/2 a dust mite.]
An incredible amount of tubular cellular machinery in such a small space...
No TV? Thats okay, its on YouTube
Other press things this month include a featured appearance on the science channels Invention Nation. This show follows three hosts across the US as they visit new eco-pioneers. These guys dropped by the Ecovative Facility in the fall (we have since moved to a larger space) and we gave them a full tour focused on insulation. Catch this show, “less landfill”, throughout the spring, and also of course, on YouTube.
What color is your roof?
Are you thinking about green roofs? Well we are to. Thats why we started a new development project with our friends over at Greensulate. And just in case you were wondering (you probably were): We are Ecovative Design, and we make Greensulate™ organic insulation, our friends run a company called Greensulate. They are fantastic consultants, who design and install energy efficient green roofs. We are very excited to be partnering with them on this product, and cant wait to show your more next month.
Updates
Hi All, lots coming up for this year, but first, a brief recap of last month.
Dec. 07: Ecovative goes international
Ecovative Design won its category, tomorrows planet, in the Oxford international business plan competition at the Said School of Business. Beyond bringing recognition to our business plan and vision of a greener future, the sponsors of this prize, NESTA, have generously awarded capital which is being rolled into the R&D of two new products: The packaging egg, and the fold flat insulated cooler.
You can read more about it here.
And you can watch our presentation here.
November 2007
Press + Awards
Ecovative Design won the 2007 ASME Innovation Showcase in Seattle, WA.
Finalist in the Oxford University 21st Century Challenge Competition. Competiton will occur on November 29 at the Said Business School.
Development
New R-value and fire retardance results on the new insulating composites. Analysis conducted on November 15.
Manufacturing to start at Ecovative’s new temporary location in the Rensselaer Tenchnology Park.
Full scale panels are currently under production for insulation demonstration.
Phase one research and development of the e-cocoon packaging buffers has been completed. Packaging peanuts and solid buffers have proven successful in growth and application.
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