N-Chroma from Wageningen University, SANergya from the University of Taubaté and Bicomer from the University of Bielefeld won the national finals of the first edition of the Global Biobased Business competition (G-BiB). They were chosen from a total of 12 teams, existing of Master and PhD students from the Netherlands, Germany and Brazil.
Prof. Patricia Osseweijer (TU Delft | BE-Basic): ‘I am very impressed by the quality of the plans. It is great to see the enthusiasm of the teams for entrepreneurship. This shows that the concept of G-Bib really works.‘ Several of the student teams value the competition especially because it opened up their eyes for a possible career as entrepreneur and learned them what aspects to consider besides technology: ‘much better focusing on an own innovation and business opportunity than using some simulation or case study’.
Dutch winner
The jury members, Anton Robek (BRD), Kees de Gooijer (TKI-BBE) and Patrick van der Meer (Brightlands Innovation Factory) selected the Dutch winner during the semi-final in Delft out of three submissions. The winning team, N-Chroma from Wageningen University, will use microorganisms to produce sustainable high quality color compounds for use in the food, cosmetic and nutraceutical industries. The two runner-ups were: mBioSteel with a business plan for biobased steel production based on new technology and Sucrose2PHB that is developing a novel production process for a biodegradable biobased plastic, polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB).
Brazilian winner
The Brazilian jury members Lúcio Angnes (FAPESP), José Tomé (AgTechGarage), Luís Ferreira (USP), Bianca Martins (DOW), Iuri Goueva (BRASKEM), selected the Brazilian winner SANergya from the seven teams that pitched their plans in Sao Paulo at the FAPESP office.
The winning team SANergya from the University of Taubaté, will provide solutions for closed cycle wastewater treatment and/or waste biogas purification and add value to by-products e.g. convert surplus sludge in bio composed fertilizer and H2S into elemental sulphur. Other praised plans consisted of a software tool LCAlive to monitor and control (bio)chemical processes to improve biorefinery process efficiency in costs and reduce (environmental) footprints; the deployment of smart gas monitors to control process conditions (BioT Gas) and the production of spider silk (Silwa) by micro-algae.
German winner
Two German teams presented their plans to the German jury members Thomas Kostka (Henkel), Achim Roth (Mitsui), Mustafa Özbir (Mitsui) and Claas Heise (NRW.Bank), during the semi finals in Dϋsseldorf. They announced Bicomer as winner of the German teams. Bicomer will develop a fermentative platform technology to produce valuable carotenoids like astaxanthin for the cosmetics industry. Moreover, Bicomer will develop AVASTA (copolymer of AVA and ASTA) for the cosmetics industry as well. The runner-up focused on an innovative material based on a sandwich structure of fungal material to be processed using 3D printing.
The competition aims to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation. The final challenge for all the teams was to write an innovative business plan based on a design for sustainable production of biorenewable products such as biofuels and biomaterials or partial solutions that will support developing those products. The competition is an initiative of the BioInnovation Growth mega-Cluster (BIG-Cluster).
The three winning teams will compete in the final organized in October during the 3rd Brazilian BioEnergy Science and Technology (BBEST) in Campos do Jordão, Brazil. The final award of €10.000,- to further develop the business plan is sponsored by Corbion.
