17Cicada develops a bacterial biomanufacturing platform that converts CO2 and waste into valuable chemical building blocks. This platform enables the sustainable production of materials for polymers, textiles, and cosmetics by utilizing bacterial cells as miniature factories.
Funding
$515K raised to dateRaised to date based on public sources. This may differ from the amount the company actually raised and is based only on what is publicly available on the internet.
Founders
Product
Problem
The accumulation of waste, including mixed plastic waste, leads to significant environmental problems, such as greenhouse gas emissions from incineration and landfilling, contributing to climate change. Current recycling methods are insufficient to handle all types of waste, leaving a substantial amount of end-of-life materials without a sustainable disposal or repurposing pathway.
Solution
17Cicada offers a biomanufacturing platform that utilizes microbial cells to convert waste streams, including mixed plastic waste and CO2, into valuable chemical building blocks. Their technology employs engineered bacteria to process contaminated waste into microbial biomass, which is then converted into valuable products like monomers for biopolymers. This approach reduces the reliance on incineration and landfilling, mitigating CO2 emissions and promoting a circular economy. The platform is designed to complement existing recycling efforts by processing waste that is otherwise difficult to recycle.
Target Audience
The primary target audience includes companies in the polymers, textiles, and cosmetics industries seeking sustainable and bio-based alternatives to traditional materials, as well as organizations involved in waste management and seeking to reduce their environmental impact.
Features
- Microbial platform capable of converting mixed and contaminated waste streams into microbial biomass.
- Metabolic engineering of bacterial chassis for the production of a range of useful products from waste.
- Production of monomers for biopolymers from microbial biomass.
- Development of technology to produce protein-rich biomass grown on farm waste.
- Projects focused on the production of Furan dicarboxylic Acid (FDCA) and Hydrogen from Bacteria.
- Expertise in genetic and metabolic engineering, as well as large-scale fermentation.