PhyCo

PhyCo's story began in 2016 while traveling to Malaysia for the trip of a lifetime to see healthy coral reefs at one of Jacques Cousteau’s top ten dive sites. Instead of the expected pristine environment, we saw a sea of plastic on a scale of such enormity that it was hard to fathom. In the air was the haze and smell of plastic as it burned; mountains of it accumulated on the beach, and as the tide came in, so did the plastic. At the time, we thought we were fortunate to live in Canada, where waste is better managed and recycled. Years later, it became evident that Canada ships its plastic waste to Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries.

Plastic pollution is a global issue. Nearly 9 billion tonnes of plastic have been produced since the 1950s, but less than 9% of what’s created is recycled. The remainder ends up in landfills, waste-to-energy facilities, or the environment, with deleterious effects on coastal communities. Canada contributes 3.3 million tonnes of plastic annually, which is poorly managed. The economic ramifications of this waste in Canada are about 7.8 billion CAD annually and are projected to increase to 11.1 billion CAD by 2030. There is also a social and environmental cost to cleaning up plastic pollution, estimated at 2.5 trillion USD globally. These estimates do not consider plastic pollution's direct and indirect impacts on coastal ecosystems, tourism, transport, fisheries, and human health. The breakdown of plastics into persistent microplastics is of major environmental concern. Microplastics are ubiquitous and can be found anywhere from the highest mountain ranges to within human blood.   

Almost half of the 1.9 million tons of plastic produced in Canada annually is used for packaging. Canadian farmers rely on 62,000 tonnes of plastic to feed us. The global crisis around plastic waste can be tackled by using biodegradable polymers as alternatives to replace non-degradable plastic. Biodegradable plastics on the market claim to be “environmentally friendly” or “compostable.” However, many contain petroleum-based plasticizers which do not degrade and persist in the environment. Often, “compostable” plastics do not break down unless subjected to industrial compost conditions, which are not accessible in many jurisdictions. Additionally, most biopolymers are produced from unsustainable feedstock (pre-consumer biomass like corn starch and sugarcane).

PhyCo’s primary mission is to reduce plastic pollution. Our solution is to develop a seaweed-based plastic alternative to reduce dependence on unsustainable petroleum while enhancing coastal marine ecosystems and mitigating climate change. We intend to work directly in partnership with Indigenous Nations to support the advancement of Canada's nascent seaweed farming industry. PhyCo will contribute to a sustainable supply of local seaweed in British Columbia and Atlantic Canada to reduce dependency on external global markets. We aim to support seaweed farmers by helping build infrastructure and guaranteeing a buyback of supply. We will then utilize that seaweed to manufacture earth-digestible plastic without petroleum-based plasticizers.

We aim to be Canada's predominant bio-based plastic provider within ten years. Our goal is to create a full product line of soft and hard bioplastics that are fully compostable within four weeks. Initially, we are developing a thin plastic film that could replace polyethylene (PE) or low-density polyethylene (LDPE). We are focused on one of the most important economic sectors: agriculture producers, distributors, and grocery retail (packaging) that rely on plastic to support our food systems. We are creating products that will provide the agricultural and agri-food sectors with a guilt-free alternative to plastic that can degrade in any environment, thus relieving our customers of stress and eliminating the risk of pollution.

Our first pilot study is in development to determine if the invasive Japanese seaweed (Sargassum muticum) can be utilized to develop a bio-based plastic material. Specifically, we are in discussions with one Indigenous Nation to work with their youth to remove Sargassum, process it, and manufacture it into plastic. Once we demonstrate our process, we can utilize it as source material, restore the health of ecosystems, and create environmentally friendly products for local coastal communities. This solution could be replicated in other areas where Sargassum has become a significant economic issue (i.e., the Caribbean islands, Florida, Mexico, and Bermuda). 

However, not all “biodegradable” products are created equal, and many cannot break down unless under specific industrial conditions. Therefore, our solution is to take a holistic approach by considering the entire lifecycle of our products to ensure degradation in a home or industrial compost, with the potential to enhance soil nutrition and mineralization. Evidence shows that applying microbial enzymes to plastic to enhance degradation could revolutionize the bio-polymer landscape. Therefore, our secondary mission is to develop microbial technologies to enzymatically degrade bio-based plastic to enable composting outside industrial conditions, i.e., at home. This sets PhyCo apart from our competitors as few have worked towards ensuring their products are fully circularized. Since our products will be home compostable, they lessen the burden on our landfills and waste management facilities while cycling nutrients back into the environment. Ultimately, we aim to close the plastics loop and expand our innovative technologies into new markets.

Many communities hardest hit by climate change and plastic pollution are underserved populations in coastal regions. These include Indigenous Nations, many lacking economic resiliency and fiscal support for climate emergencies. Coastal or remote Indigenous Nations typically rely on a sole source of income for the community, often fisheries or another industry. For centuries, Indigenous peoples have taken a two-eyed-seeing approach. With great respect for the earth, they have found a balance between providing for their communities while respecting and nourishing the planet. Indigenous Nations have a myriad of valuable knowledge to combat climate change and benefit coastal communities effectively. 

Seaweed farming is a growing industry in North America, and Indigenous Nations are on the cusp of this momentum. We have begun to build partnerships with several First Nations in British Colombia to expand seaweed aquaculture sustainably and responsibly. Indigenous Nations have the foresight to farm sustainably to improve the marine ecosystem. Research on seaweed aquaculture has demonstrated positive impacts in coastal regions to mitigate climate change and provide communities with jobs and a revenue source. As seaweed grows, it sequesters carbon, reverses ocean acidification, absorbs excess nutrients from runoff like phosphorus and nitrogen, provides a habitat for marine life, mitigates wave action, and even dampens marine traffic noise. 

PhyCo is disruptive at its core. As a team of women scientists with diverse backgrounds, we support diversity and inclusion by hiring professionals from all backgrounds, particularly underrepresented groups. Since we are working from a grassroots perspective, we work directly with communities and ensure our relationships with them are mutually beneficial and respectful. Our social impact is based on our relationships with Indigenous Nations from coast to coast in BC and PEI. We expect to have established equally beneficial relationships with our Indigenous partners on the Canadian Atlantic and Pacific coasts. 

PhyCo has begun building partnerships with Indigenous Nations since our inception. Establishing these partnerships requires understanding, fairness, and nuance. They are complex and take time as they move at the speed of trust. We have begun discussions with eight Nations in BC, Canada. We have potential pilot projects in development with two Nations. On Canada's Atlantic coast, we have initiated talks with Workforce Warriors in New Brunswick and the Mawiomi Student Centre at the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada. We plan to establish partnerships with these Indigenous-led organizations for science and technology education working with Indigenous youth. Future plans include establishing partnerships with Indigenous Nations in Atlantic Canada to develop seaweed farming pilots.

In terms of potential customers, through customer discovery, we have determined that our early adopters and target end users are small-scale organic farmers that grow high-value crops (i.e., leafy greens, herbs, mushrooms, and peppers), greenhouse growers, small to medium-sized grocery retailers, and distributors. Secondary end-users have been identified as municipal and private waste management companies. These facilities receive our product at the end of its lifecycle. We are working on combining enzymatic technology with our bioplastic products to accelerate their breakdown under compost conditions. 

PhyCo is a women-led company built on two ambitious female scientists' passion for positively impacting plastic pollution through equitable nature-based solutions. Our aligned values position us exceptionally well to support an atmosphere of social equity as a team with leadership skills and EDI training. We are dedicated to positively impacting the ability of coastal communities to adapt to more extreme weather due to climate change. 

Ranah Chavoshi, MSc. (Co-founder and CEO) has seven years of experience as a marine biologist specializing in aquatic toxicology and phycology, the study of seaweed. She also has demonstrated leadership in equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives. She has experience in ecological restoration in the non-profit and industry sectors.

Stacey Goldberg, Ph.D. (Co-founder and CSO) has 23 years of cross-disciplinary experience in biomedical science, environmental science, and microbiology. She obtained NSERC funding for her doctoral research in marine natural products. She recently completed a Mitacs Elevate postdoctoral fellowship studying salmon aquaculture, sequencing, and bioinformatics and completed training in management and leadership. She managed various research and clinical projects and facilitated multi-institutional collaborations. 

Together both founders have 30 years of shared experience in biological research in industry, academia, and non-profit. In addition, both founders have completed business programs, including Lab2Market and SFU’s Invention to Innovation (i2I) program. We have conducted over 300 customer discovery interviews and participated in Springboard's Investor Readiness program. Within one year of launching PhyCo, we were granted 51,000 CAD in awards and 45,000 CAD in stipends for business development. We have gained solid traction and amassed a wonderfully supportive group of mentors and advisors. We are building our data room, raising capital, developing an impact strategy, and establishing KPIs.

PhyCo is strategically growing our team by onboarding a materials scientist specializing in algal biomaterials. Dr. Minh-Hai Tran has over ten years of research experience working with carbon derivatives and nanotechnology. In addition, she has three years of industrial experience in launching a project in algal biomaterials for applications in biomedicine. We are actively searching for an Indigenous business development specialist who can help us scale our startup and bring their expertise and worldview.

We have completed a third iteration of our bioplastic prototype as a bio-based plastic thin film developed from natural, non-toxic components derived from seaweed (see link1and link2). We are onboarding a third team member, a biomaterials engineer, as a consultant to advance our bioplastic prototype from TRL3 to TRL 4/5. We are focused on developing a prototype that can be customized into several different products based on its thickness, porosity, elasticity, and durability. 

We have been developing relationships with five Nations since the inception of our startup in October 2022. This is the first step in establishing a long-term and respectful partnership. Next, we will conduct a pilot study with an Indigenous Nation in BC to harvest seaweed for the next iteration of bioplastic prototype development. We are also speaking with one Nation to develop a pilot with Indigenous youth to harvest the invasive Japanese seaweed, S. muticum, process it, and determine if it is a viable feedstock for bio-based plastic. 

PhyCo supports diversity and inclusion by hiring professionals with diverse backgrounds, particularly underrepresented groups, women, and people of color. We are onboarding a third female scientist, an algal biomaterials expert, to develop our bioplastic prototype further. We are discussing the possibility of three students joining our team as interns or consultants. We are also actively searching for an Indigenous hire as a business team member. Therefore, PhyCo will provide at least three employment opportunities for their professional development and to advance our technology.  

We are in talks with an Indigenous Nation to sustainably harvest seaweed for the research and development of our products. This is the first step in establishing a long-term and respectful partnership. We are also speaking with another Nation to develop a pilot with Indigenous youth to harvest seaweed, process it, and determine if it is a viable feedstock for bio-based plastic. Additional collaborations in the works include science and technology education programs and college teaching opportunities with Indigenous and other institutions. 

As we have not yet reached commercialization, we cannot serve the public with our bioplastic products. Still, we are currently developing our prototype and aim to have a minimum viable product (MVP) within one year. We plan to measure our environmental impact through the amount of plastic we replace in the supply chain. 

We are applying to Solve to access an extensive network of industry experts, patient capital, social capital, and mentorship. We are a science-based venture with high-impact potential and disruptive technology that takes time to develop and perfect. We are looking for an investment with the understanding of the potential impact of our vision and what we are trying to accomplish. We have begun long-term relationship-building with Indigenous Nations to garner trust and develop our business slowly and sustainably. We also hope to dig deeper into our market to determine the barriers, risks, and feasibility of our solution to have a genuine impact on the resiliency of coastal communities. We are a young founding team that welcomes the mentorship of individuals who understand how to grow and scale a clean-technology business. With financial support, we would continue research and development through sustainable seaweed aquaculture in partnership with Indigenous Nations.

We are developing novel clean technologies and methods to extract and separate high-value components from seaweed, including but not limited to alginates, carrageenans, polysaccharides, cellulose, and other bioactive compounds. After extracting what is needed for bioplastic development, we will utilize all by-products of our process; most likely, the remaining components will be used as fertilizer or animal feed nutritional supplements. We will be developing our bioplastics with sustainability in mind and considering using food or industrial waste products to supplement natural compounds from seaweed as a composite material. We are creating a replacement for PE or LDPE with equal or better characteristics capable of withstanding the elements but breaking down when subjected to compost conditions. Our manufacturing methods will be designed to fit into existing plastic manufacturing infrastructure, such as extrusion or blown-film techniques; to our knowledge, the latter does not currently exist for bio-based plastics. In addition, our enzymatic technology will be developed in the future. This innovative technology could include several aspects, such as creating green extraction methods without using harsh chemicals, aiding the degradation of bioplastics, or microbial fermentation of food/industrial waste for bioplastic development. 

Our objective for the next year is to accelerate the nascent seaweed farming industry in Canada and obtain an MVP for our bioplastic from seaweed, which requires innovation in extraction and manufacturing techniques. Goals for the next five years include building solid partnerships with Indigenous Nations to obtain a regular supply of seaweed to scale seaweed farming and guaranteed buyback. This would allow us to scale our pilot projects with customers that require a guaranteed large scale before piloting in industries such as agri-food and aquaculture. We have several potential customers lined up through customer discovery and are in the process of obtaining letters of intent (LOIs). We also have several potential collaborations in the works with SMEs that have overlapping values and goals. We hope to have received multiple patents within five years to protect our IP and enable revenue streams from licensing our technologies. Overall impact goals for the next several years include: 1) building equity for underserved populations, 2) providing employment opportunities for women and minorities, 3) generating bioplastic alternatives on a large scale but in a sustainable way that has a significant impact on reducing the production (or purchase) of petroleum-based plastic, and 4) manufacturing bioplastics that are compostable at home and will degrade into non-toxic core components if leaked the environment.

See attached link for our impact goals of providing employment:

https://drive.google.com/file/...

We have been working on establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to PhyCo regarding impact assessment. Our established KPIs will be the following:

Business/financial impact metrics: meeting quarterly/yearly goals, number of funded initiatives, increase in overall revenue, selling carbon credits, number of patents, number of customer interviews, validated business model, amount of donations.

Social impact metrics: lack of employee turnover, volunteer/internship hours, net promoter score, quality of feedback, inclusion and diversity requirements for staff and partners.

Environmental impact metrics: measurement of bioplastic produced to replace petroleum plastic, emission reduction percentages, quantification of carbon capture, level of outreach.

Please see attached image for the simplified version of our theory of change.

Our core technology includes research and development in the areas of biomaterials engineering, polymer chemistry, microbiology, and synthetic biology. Many applications of different technologies can be employed to innovate our compostable bioplastic with the same functionalities of the petroleum-based plastic it can replace. We will use chemical and physical assessment equipment and tools to test for durability, opacity, tensile strength, melt viscosity, density, stability, etc. We will likely incorporate specific AI or software tools to analyze and compare genes/enzymes and for modeling. We will also, when possible, simplify our methods by leveraging natural products and ancestral knowledge. 

PhyCo's team has received training in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Ranah has taken an Indigenous Governance and Relations course through SFU and was the chair of the Biological Sciences Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. Ranah developed a grassroots campaign through the support of SFU for the first Indigenous and Black People of Colour graduate scholarship in the biological sciences department. This experience was invaluable in working with the Indigenous and Black communities the scholarship would serve. Ranah led the establishment of the Phycological Society of America's DEI committee and is acting as a member currently. Ranah's lived experience as a queer woman of color and experience in facilitating and developing community projects is an asset for PhyCo as we continue to grow and develop partnerships with Indigenous nations in Canada. 

Stacey received DEI skills training through her Mitacs Elevate postdoctoral fellowship. She has had several opportunities to apply what she has learned throughout her 23 years in science beginning as a technician and graduating to management. Stacey has worked within academia, industry, and nonprofit sectors. She can carry this knowledge and skills forward as we build and grow PhyCo. 

PhyCo has been built on aligned values of DEI with particular goals of supporting women in science, people of color, and Indigenous communities. We believe meaningful impact directly results from the inclusivity and diversity of teams and partnerships. We will continue building these social equity values into our business model. 

As scientists, we are data-driven and let the evidence lead us to the most innovative solutions. Evidence also supports the model that diversity leads to greater health of ecosystems, communities, and biomes. We welcome open dialogue within our organization and partners. We will lead by example, exuding that health and sustainability are paramount to positive environmental and societal changes.  

The attached business model canvas (BMC) for PhyCo was validated (items highlighted in green) through nearly 100 customer discovery interviews. Additional interviews (not included in this BMC) were conducted to test alternative innovation ideas, including 1) utilizing seaweed-based plastics for use in the biomedical sector and 2) the application of microbial/enzymatic technologies to biodegrade plastics.

PhyCo's strategy for fundraising is to initially utilize non-dilutive grants to develop our business model and bioplastic MVP. Our strategy is to bootstrap while we build our business. We will continue to pursue funding in this manner to have our MVP ready for pilot projects with several customers within a year. Once we have validated our technology, we plan to raise a pre-seed investment. Through our customer discovery interviews, we have piqued the interest of several organic growers and distributors, as well as businesses in other markets, for pilots and, ultimately, for sales of our products. We hope to bring in revenue within two years through direct sales of our high-value bioplastic products and potentially from secondary sales of by-products obtained from seaweed processing and extraction as fertilizer or supplements in animal feed. In addition, we are considering an IP strategy and plan to conduct patent searches, obtain Freedom to Operate, and file provisional patents. Therefore, secondary income could be a result of licensing our technology. After receiving a provisional patent, we will continue expanding and growing our business and proceed with a seed round of investment (in about two years). Lastly, we will likely be able to sell carbon credits as income through seaweed farming and carbon capture. 

We have obtained 96,000 CAD for prototype and business development within just over one year of inception, including non-dilutive funding, awards, and stipends. Most of the financing has resulted from winning competitions and having successful applications for open "challenges" like this one. This has allowed us to grow our startup thoughtfully and sustainably through in-kind services, incubators, mentorship, and education from industry and business experts.

Funding milestones include:

December 2021 - $3.5 K - 1st PLACE WINNER - Pitch Competition - YMCA YMB

June 2022 - $10K - WINNER - Ocean Start-Up Idea Challenge

July 2022 - $2.5 K - WINNER - OceanWise Ocean Innovator Lab

Sept 2022 - $15K - Mitacs Accelerate Grant - L2M Validate (Ranah)

Nov 2022 - $25K - WINNER - Ocean Start-Up Challenge

Jan 2023 - $15K - Mitacs Accelerate Grant - L2M Validate (Stacey)

March 2023 - $10K (+ $15K IN-KIND SERVICES) - 1st PLACE WINNER - SFU Venture Pitch Competition

April 2023 - $15K - Mitacs, ACOA, & MIT - L2M Launch