Founders Of Waste2chemical

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Research-based companies:

Their start and development

When starting up new companies there are a lot of things to deal with. A good way to get a first impression about the process of starting up a new venture is to learn from people who have personal experience with this. Therefore we interviewed two entrepreneurs; one from a University spin off, Waste2Chemical, and another from a subsidiary company, InTech Dike Security Systems.

Waste2Chemical

Background of the company

Waste2Chemical is a spin-off company from Wageningen University. Officially started on the 20th of May 2010, but the discovery of the process was patented in 2007. The company wants to provide a sustainable and profitable solution to create chemicals from the waste- and agrofood industry. In other words they convert organic waste into higher value chemicals such as fatty acids.

With the origin in Wageningen Universities' Environmental technology department is the base for their priority in nature and environment. They want the recycling of material flows to enable access to new sustainable resources. By extracting the high value products as chemicals, water and nutrients. In the main time they reduce the amount of waste.

Founders of Waste2Chemical

Kirsten Steinbusch: one of the inventors of the technology and initiator of the company. She graduated her Msc in Environmental Sciences (2004), started her PhD research at the sub-department of Environmental Technology at Wageningen University. In her research work she discovered and developed the fermentation technology that is used in the company. At Waste2Chemical Kirsten is responsible for application, innovation and process development for different industrial applications. She is one of the R&D employees.

Niels van Stralen: graduated his MSc in Biobased Technologies at Wageningen University within the department of Environmental technology and the department of Agricultural and Bioresource Engineering (2011) with experience in fermentation technologies, modeling kinetics of biological processes and bioreactor design. At Waste2Chemical he is process engineer, with an MSc minor in innovation management and this way responsible for business development.

Process

Their biotechnological process converts different types of organic waste or residues. This moment they perform feasibility studies for different waste streams on lab scale in Amsterdam and is preparing the technology for the pilot phase.

The combination of a cheap feedstock, low cost fermentation and easy separation gives a low price for the volumes of bio-based building blocks compared to other processes. This makes it easier to pass the barrier to the bio-based chemical market, where competition with fossil derived chemicals is cost based.

Feedstock: All kind of degradable organic waste material can be converted into chemicals. Because of the flexibility in feedstock the application range of the technology is broad. This gives them a platform technology.

Fermentation: During the process, the biomass is solved, homogenized and converted into the biochemical retain almost all its original energy. The process uses continuous mixed culture fermentation, which makes sterilization unnecessary and reduces the start-up time. This lowers both their capital and operational costs.

Product Recovery and Down Stream Processing: They say their recovery and purification step of the medium chain biochemicals is expected to be cost and energy efficient. The chemicals can be separated from the water more easily, because of their solubility. And the quality of the biochemical fulfills requirements for each type of application such as polymers, plastics, paint additives, lubricants or even renewable fuels.

There are two main technologies used:

Mixed culture biotechnology is a combination of environmental and industrial biotechnology. Environmental biotechnology has roots in wastewater treatment where mixed culture bacteria perform a black box operation. Their wastewater treatment accelerates the degradation of waste at low costs. Mixed culture biotechnology also focuses on product maximization. They add a mix of microbial cultures. In this step it is important to control the environment such as the steering and substrates.

Some advantages of mixed culture biotechnology, what makes it interesting:

• Easy for processing of mixed and complex waste streams

• Adaptive capacity to changes in substrate/operation

• No need for sterile operation

• Simple process control

• Low energy demand for the production process

Industrial biotechnology focuses on scaling up of the product formation with pure cultures and/or enzymes. Here a single organism is cultured, designed to optimize a specific conversion on a pure substrate which is mostly sugars.

The first bio-based building blocks, medium chain fatty acids, can be used in the chemical industry as building blocks for: Polymers, plasticizers, paint additives, lubricants.

Company development

Kirsten and Niels made their first business plan, mainly a lot of nice words, not really with interesting content. They are still improving their plan with the advice of consultants. That was something they agreed to it could have done earlier to save time and reinventing the wheel. They joined in several contest and mainly won. This is one of the ways they used to finance their project. Also they tried to receive funding from our government or the EU, which they got most of the time. They had a few times, when they really thought they would get the funding, but they didn’t. These were financial misfortunes.

For the research part they were looking at what the bacteria could do. The bacteria are very efficient in synthesizing large fatty acid chains. Most companies are only able to synthesize short fatty acids, so this would give them a great competitive advantage. This feature has a lot of applications. Right now they are doing feasibility tests on every application in a small factory in Amsterdam. In the next two years they want to have a main product.

The circumstances and people that played a major role in development

It was a beautiful coincidence that Kirsten and Niels were in the same group of a business course. They were both ambitious and Kirsten was familiar with the process and the patent. She also knew this patent was for sale and the company that financed the research changed its strategy. They joined their personal ambitions, waited till they finished their study and wrote a business plan. Waste2Chemicals joined in different business plan contests. With great success, they won several times. This is the way they got in contact with their first mentor, who helped improving their business plan. Niels made a consultant dossier, just by networking.

Ownership and management

Waste2Chemical actively looks for partnering in technology development, for the application of the technology in the organic waste and agro-food industry and for the development of applications of the biobased building blocks in the chemical industry. Development of a new technological concept involves knowledge of different disciplines. They have their own network and consultant dossier. Partnering up with parties from the whole value chain will lead to quick development and market entry.

The whole team now exist of five employees. Two of them are at the R&D section. Kirsten and Niels are still the core of the company. Later this year they will increase their team with two new faces. One of them is financially independent and will become a leading figure in their management board.

InTech Dike Security Systems

Background of the company

InTech Dike Security Systems (IDS Systems) was founded in 2007 as subsidiary company of InTech B.V. which is an engineering and technical consultancy bureau stationed in Haarlem. IDS Systems is based on a new technology that uses infra-red cameras to monitor dikes to see whether the dike is still strong enough to stay intact, and if danger occurs, give a warning before it is too late to strengthen the dike.

The initial idea emerged when Onne Rösingh saw a reportage about how the Dutch national weather institute (KNMI) still uses dike security systems we used 100 years ago. Every time a heavy storm comes over, men with flashlight are sent up and down all the 17.000 kilometres of dike the Netherlands have to check whether their dike is still intact. He thought the dike security could be done safer, faster, more effectively and efficiently. A friend of his who did research in infra-red camera technology gave him the idea to monitor the dikes with cameras to see if the dikes were still stable.

Founder of InTech Dike Security Systems

Onne Rösingh worked for Oranjeboom and ProSensus. In 2004 he founded an engineering and technical consultancy bureau named InTech. Later, in 2007, InTech Dike Security Systems B.V. was founded as a subsidiary company of InTech B.V. with help of Technical University of Twente, ViNotion, Flir, Deltares and TNO.

Product

IDS Security offers a unique combination of technologies in cooperation with Holland-Delta. Infra-red cameras, water pressure sensors and satellites combined with software to monitor and save all the data and algorithms to see how water will run when a dike bursts, give a 99.9% certainty that an warning will be given in time to be able to strengthen the dike, or to evacuate the people to the correct place. Holland-Delta is another subsidiary company of InTech B.V. and is cooperating with several companies to prevent minimal risks on dike security.

In 2007 the project ‘ijkdijk’ was launched. This is a project which enables innovative companies to do tests on an artificial dike breach, to show their techniques to improve the dike security. When IDS Systems joined this project, the test results were even better than they had hoped. One very important thing was learnt from those tests is that only one technology is not sufficient to ensure safety, when the technologies are combined a much bigger certainty is guaranteed.

Another thing he learnt from the ‘ijkdijk’ project was that this market was so very new, there was no market yet, but it was just a matter of a few years before it would be growing very rapidly. This, and the fact that he had his technology patented, gave him the opportunity to be one of the first on the market which would give him a head start.

During the start-up, Onne Rösingh learnt that one thing is really important: having a good and reliable team of advisors and partners. This is very tough to find, he says, but as software and know-how are two key-features of his company, it is an important part of starting up the company.

In 2010 IDS Security won the Syntens ‘Golden Chance 2010’, the prize for the most innovative company of Noord-Holland. This gave the opportunity to talk to advisors from investment companies, giving IDS Systems the opportunity to perfect their business plans and giving another view on managing the company.

When starting a new venture, Onne Rösingh says, you do not need to have a business education. What is more important is having a good network of people that can help you. He started his company with an idea created together with a friend of his, and tried to find more contacts to ensure its success.

Another thing that is important for a starting company is money. As IDS Systems is a subsidiary company of InTech, the investments needed to start the new venture came out of the parent company. This made the search for investments quite easy since Onne Rösingh is director of InTech as well.

From the moment of start-up until now there has not been a big setback, at the moment his product is being installed at the other side of the planet. IDS Security is aiming to have a positive cash flow in 2014, and will be growing rapidly after that. The only thing left to do is to assure the government that their technology is safer and cheaper.

The circumstances and people that played a major role in development

When in August 2003 the dike in Wilnis, Utrecht, breached without explanation, the Dutch government, who claims to be the world leader in dike security, started a process to encourage companies to invest in dike security. One of these processes was project ‘ijkdijk’, a project that looked for innovative ways to check when an artificial dike would breach. Out of the participant companies a few companies were very promising. Holland-Delta is a company which uses several of the technologies of these companies. One of those companies was IDS Security. The Vietnamese government is now in consolation with Holland-Delta, and therefore with IDS Security.

Syntens, a consultative organ on Dutch subsidies, gave the Golden Chance 2010 to IDS Security; this gave the opportunity to speak with a lot of very good advisors. Even though they were already quite successful, this helped IDS Systems to become more effective.

Comparison of the businesses

When comparing Waste2Chemical and IDS Systems the first thing noticeable is the way they started the business: one as a spin off and the other is a subsidiary company. This brings a few (dis)advantages for the companies. First of all the funding; this was a lot easier for IDS Systems, which received funding from his parent company, while W2C was depending on external funds and prices.

The second difference is the advice they got. Since W2C is founded in cooperation with professors from the University, they started with a vast network of connections. This network was further extended due to connections made by winning several competitions. In the beginning IDS Systems only had the personal contacts of the founder. Like W2C, they also got more connections by winning a competition; the Syntens Golden Chance Award.

The background of the founders was also very different. Both founders of W2C were students, master and PhD. The founder of IDS Systems was a civil technical entrepreneur. He had little experience in starting up a company. IDS Systems got around this problem by getting advice of an accountant and outsourcing the development of the business plan. W2C have had business education and wrote the business plan with help of some professors.

There is a big difference in the market. W2C is targeting an existing market, while IDS Systems is targeting a new market, but with good market potential.

Concluding, the companies had a very different way to start up the business. However, both are successful until now, without major setbacks and they have both great potential for the future.