The second cohort of the Ready2Scale Acceleration Program is wrapping up. Over the past two years, Ready2Scale has supported 25 of Europe’s most promising deep-tech startups with tailored mentorship, strategic guidance, and €60,000 in funding. Among them is ecorbio, a venture tackling climate challenges by producing key chemicals from sustainable feedstock instead of fossil-based resources.
The company was established by Lukas Jasiunas and Panayiotis Philimis in late 2020, bringing together experience from established backgrounds within engineering, business development and growth.
The following questions are answered by Lukas Jasiunas, Founder and CEO of ecorbio.
How did the idea for your startup originate?
The idea was the continuation of Lukas’ PhD research work—investigating ways to sustainably replace harmful and unsustainable chemicals that are widely used in construction, furniture, and engineering sectors. The combination of engineering, development, and new company growth by Lukas and Panayiotis has enabled pursuing this.
What have been your biggest challenges and most significant achievements so far?
Pushing the knowledge, experiments, and discoveries even further, closer to being accepted and adopted by industries, has been challenging, and it is up to us now to finish overcoming this—to showcase that our products can replace existing ones beneficially. In terms of achievements, we are continuously collaborating with key educators and industry leaders to run our methodological development projects, testing newly produced biochemical samples and showcasing the promising performance of biochemical foams for several applications.
What drives you to continue, even during difficult times?
Our motivation is to make an impactful positive difference for polyurethane materials and the consumed products. We believe that by pursuing such a goal, even with limited development, we will help support the ongoing technological progress towards more sustainable outcomes—an effective add-on to the battle opposing climate change and dropping crude oil reserves.
What sets your startup apart from competitors?
What sets us apart is our number one target—we want to see our technology and developments improve the global social plight towards sustainability in an industry-applicable, integratable manner. Instead of focusing on maximising profits from a limited resource, we want to grow the possibilities of waste-derived functional materials.
What are your expectations from the Ready2Scale Acceleration Programme, and how do you think it will benefit your startup?
The tailored support and mentorship can take us an important step forward—towards having a sizeable impact in the real world. By getting to know what investor readiness is available, and which of the active markets could be the most promising, ecorbio could progress towards bringing the technology and solution in development to be applied in functioning markets.
Where do you see your startup in one year? And in five years?
In one year, we see ecorbio with a well-established market presence using our pilot factory products (up to a tonne of biocrude per year). In five years, besides growing into at least one targeted full-scale production facility, we want to continue our research and development drive to expand our opportunities and make an even wider spread and higher established impact.
Which books, podcasts, publications, or influencers do you follow and recommend to other entrepreneurs?
Publications: “Recent advances and challenges in sustainable management of plastic waste using biodegradation approach” in Bioresource Technology; “Synthesis of biomass-derived bottom waste ash-based rigid biopolyurethane composite foams: Rheological behaviour, structure and performance characteristics” in Composite Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing
Influencer: Manal Bidar, activist on LinkedIn
Ecorbio is expanding its research team and is currently looking for a chemical engineer eager to contribute to developing new, more sustainable materials. Interested candidates can apply and learn more via the company’s LinkedIn page. For more information about the company, visit https://www.ecorbio.com.
