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BaCta is using engineered bacteria to grow natural rubber and slash CO2 emissions
- French start-up baCta uses genetically engineered E.coli bacteria to create natural rubber in a lab using glucose as its feedstock. The company recently recieved €3.3m ($3.6m) in funding to help it find ways to industrialise its process and tackle the challenge of producing raw material on the scale required by other manufacturers.
- More than 50% of the world's rubber is synthetic and produced from petroleum. Natural rubber is harvested from Hevea trees' latex. The ways of producing both types are not great from a sustainability perspective.
- If a renewable raw material like biosynthesised natural rubber can be created, there would be a clear incentive for manufacturers to switch to a more sustainable option and reduce carbon footprint.
- BaCta's CEO Mathieu Nohet is adamant that its biosynthesised natural rubber can compete with non-sustainable options if scale is achieved. He believes the company's polymerisation mechanism inside the E.coli cells creates more significant yields and cost efficiency when using different feedstocks.
- Nohet has stated that his start-up hopes to target luxury fashion and apparel brands initially and then expand to industry once it has figured out scaling.
- BaCta hopes to reach pilot scale in 18 months and receive pre-industrial scale funding in addition to the funding recently secured from OVNI Capital, another.vc, Kima Ventures and Sharpstone Capital.
- As genetically engineered natural rubber production removes specific proteins that trigger allergies, the start-up views biosynthesised natural rubber as potentially hypoallergenic.
- BaCta also has plans for producing carbon neutral isoprenoids for use in industrial and pharmaceutical production.
- Rubber is an understandable, familiar product that can be approached an initial step towards wider missions.
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