Ourobio aus Indianapolis | B2B | Biotechnologie

Using synthetic biology to help create the circular economy

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Unser Angebot

Ourobio is an early stage synbio, biomaterials, and circular economy startup. We develop engineered microorganisms to turn food and ag processing byproducts into low-footprint biodegradable plastic resins and additives, and we work with plastic converters and brands to create more sustainable products and packaging. Our proprietary fermentation technology is unique in its ability to non-competitively co-produce two complementary biomaterials, starting with bio-based biodegradable PHA resins and indigoid pigments - lowering the cost, footprint, and difficulty of producing marketable/brandable, fully bio-based and biodegradable products and packaging.

Zielgruppe

We source sugars and proteins from food+ag processors, and our primary customers are business development, procurement, and sustainability leads at plastic converters and brands in consumer industries, who mix our colored concentrates in with larger batches of uncolored biopolymer resin(s).

Unsere Story

Ourobio began as an iGEM project called Transfoam at the University of Virginia in 2019 and was spun out in March 2020. Transfoam was an attempt at creating a “beginning and end of life solution to plastic pollution,” using fermentation to convert recycled polystyrene into PHAs. Realizing our shared passion for sustainability and complementary strengths in entrepreneurship and biotech R&D, we decided to work on Transfoam after iGEM; however, we realized early on that while this technology/story was great for spotlighting the issues we wanted to solve, it would struggle to solve them at scale. Just over a year into independent R&D, we accidentally discovered our strain’s ability to co-produce indigo and PHB, performed market discovery and literature dives to affirm the potential impact of the discovery and that whey would be an ideal starting feedstock, and in ~6 months, pivoted to pursue our new technology and *finally* rebranded to encompass our larger vision.