Cellsense

Cellsense originated from a critical evaluation of the fashion industry's environmental impact, particularly targeting the embellishments sector notorious for its substantial contribution to labor exploitation, global microplastic pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Interviews with over 30 brands led us to discover that despite the high demand, there are no scalable and sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based embellishments in the market today, nor systems to automate the beadwork process. We realized that we could use biotechnology and our design background to meet this critical need, catalyzing the formation of Cellsense.

• Almost 70% of all clothes in the world are made from plastic. Embellished items are worn only 5 times on average and take 200+ years to decompose.

• The fashion industry's reliance on outsourced, manual beadwork creates significant inefficiencies: it's costly (over $300 for a 1000 cm² panel), environmentally damaging (due to long supply chains and toxic materials), and lacks automation.

• 39% of a brand's carbon footprint stems from the materials it uses, and brands such as Mara Hoffman and Roma Narsinghani have addressed this issue by completely boycotting embellishments, even from their bridal collection, due to the complete lack of sustainable options. 

Our first innovation is centered around using abundantly available renewable raw materials such as algae and cellulose to create scalable, bioluminescent embellishments. After conducting over 130 tests, we developed a proprietary method of transforming algae and cellulose into transparent durable bio-composites with a combination of water resistance, compostability, and appropriate jade like touch-feel. These bio-embellishments have manifest environmental benefits over conventional options. Instead of being a major contributor of microplastics, our embellishment naturally decomposes. Rather than requiring fossil fuels to produce, they actually represent sequestered carbon during their lifespan.

One critical issue with traditional embellishments is the use of toxic dyes, metallic coatings, and chemicals for color. Cellsense addresses this by engineering BS1 bacteria to produce vivid colors as well as unique properties such as bioluminescence for added aesthetic value. The resulting product line of sustainable bio-embellishment has already seen extensive demand from 20+ brands. Extending beyond fashion, our material can replace plastics in jewelry, textiles, handbags, interiors, and the beauty industry.

Cellsense's other major innovation is in manufacturing. To manufacture individual embellishments on a mass scale, we have demonstrated our algae-cellulose biopolymer solution can be used with electrodeposition, a technique where electric fields form polymers directly onto electrodes The applied voltage causes the solution to be drawn toward the anode, where it forms hydrogel beads in just 3 minutes, expending minimal power. This process can be scaled and parallelized by utilizing an array of anodes; multiple beads can also be electroformed around the same anode.

To form completed bead garments, we have utilized custom 3D print molds and robotically controlled syringes to directly deposit our biopolymer embellishments in complex patterns onto mesh: this cannot be accomplished with traditional thermoplastic and eliminates significant manual labor. For example, we demonstrated the autonomous production of a beaded panel in 20 minutes which ordinarily takes 6 hours to complete by hand. This offers significant value to designers, who can rapidly iterate and receive completed products locally with low lead times. Once sufficiently mature, we can even offer this as an online service directly to consumers.

Cellsense offers a high-impact, sustainable, scalable solution currently unavailable in the market. Our approach encompasses the entire lifecycle of embellishments, from sustainable sourcing of raw materials and energy-efficient advanced manufacturing processes to end-of-life decomposition, establishing a new standard for environmental responsibility in industries often characterized by rapid trend cycles and wasteful practice.

Observing the environmental and human impact of the fast fashion industry in Gujarat, India, we recognized the urgent need for a sustainable alternative. We saw embroiderers suffer from the industry's negligence, their painstaking work discarded after a single use, and their health compromised due to constant exposure to toxic chemicals. Global plastic pollution from discarded microbeads was an additional concern. This inspired us to create Cellsense, a comprehensive solution that reimagines the production, use, and disposal of embellishments, replacing plastics with biodegradable algae-cellulose beads, and reducing reliance on manual labor

Target Popultaion - 

Fashion Industry (1.7 trillion), Apparel Embellishments ( $30 billion)- Our Bio-embellishments can replace toxic petroleum plastics while automating labor-intensive processes and localizing production. 

Jewelry industry ($366 billion), with a focus on beads ($5.4 billion). Our materials mimic the appearance of precious stones like jade, helping reduce reliance on mining and lower carbon footprint.

Beauty industry ( $430 billion ) - Cellsense algae-cellulose beads offer a sustainable alternative to plastic microbeads found in traditional cleansers. Our microbial dyes can replace toxic pigments used in blush and lipstick.

To test the commercial viability of our product we have already launched 3 successful pilots and we have received requests from over 20 fashion, jewelry, and cosmetic brands to purchase our material at a wholesale capacity; this is a testament to an unsatisfied market demand and desirable quality of our product.

Cellsense eliminates high-impact plastic and resin pollutants prevalent in the design and cosmetic industry. We have developed a transparent bio-embellishments formula utilizing algae and cellulose. Having validated our scalable production techniques, we are now focused on establishing industrial-scale systems. These systems are designed to efficiently produce large volumes of our sustainable embellishments at competitive prices in response to the growing market demand.

Aradhita Parasrampuria, CEO of Cellsense is a trained materials designer and researcher. She attended Parsons and has worked at Tory Burch, threeASFOUR, and Slow Factory Labs. After witnessing the fashion industry's disastrous environmental impact in India, she founded Cellsense to drive change. Aradhita's connection with the embroiderers in India was essential in testing our solution and receiving their feedback. Aradhita leads material development, strategic decision-making, and brand collaborations. 

Stefan Colton is a mechanical engineer who specializes in advanced manufacturing systems. He is the author of two papers and one patent. Stefan is an expert at scaling sustainable technology and contributes to the design and manufacturing of production machinery at Cellsense.

Dr. Michael Reid is a polymer scientist with over a decade of expertise in nanocelluloses. Dr. Reid specializes in advanced composite materials and characterization protocols. Dr. Reid advises Cellsense in material testing and sustainable composite coating development.

Mimma Viglezio brings over two decades of luxury brand management and communications expertise. With leadership roles at Bulgari, Louis Vuitton, and Gucci Group, Mimma guides Cellsense on IP and marketing strategies.

Abhishek Parasrampuria has over five years of work experience at BDO LLP specializing in financial due diligence and has helped over 40 clients across multiple sectors. Abhishek advises Cellsense on our business plan, financial strategy, and budgeting.

Cellsense has proven market demand and scalability through successful MVP integration within the fashion and jewelry sectors. We have collaborated with renowned brands such as Ian Allen Greer and designers Roma Narsinghani and NPOMME, showcasing our ability to meet market needs. For example, we rapidly developed 50000 bio-embellishments in just 10 days for NPOMME's upcoming collection, and Roma Narsinghani, a sustainability-driven brand, had avoided using embellishments in their jewelry collections due to the complete lack of sustainable options, but they purchased 2000 pieces of our bio-embellishments. Their collaboration with Cellsense was very well received and loved by customers. Roma Narsinghani has placed 4 orders with Cellsense since the initial pilot. We have received overwhelmingly positive feedback on our bio-embellishments light weight property, wide color range, and jade like finish from designers and customers, with demand from over 20 brands to purchase our products.

We are applying to Solve because we believe that our solution has the potential to eliminate all sources of plastic in the fashion industry. Using our initial grant funding, we have successfully developed a patent-pending method of transforming algae and cellulose into sustainable embellishments with a combination of water resistance, compostability, and appropriate touch feel. Our solution has been tested commercially with three successful paid pilots. We have drawn interest from over 20 brands and want to solidify partnerships, scale, and expand our product line in 2024. 

While we have secured initial funding for our pilot project, we recognize the need for additional investment to support further development, scaling, and market expansion. Solve's network of partners and potential investors can provide crucial support in securing funding and navigating the complexities of fundraising. 

We need technical support to develop larger-scale manufacturing systems and infrastructure upgrades. Solve's expert network can offer mentorship and guidance to optimize our production techniques and biotechnological processes, ensuring that we remain competitive in the market.

We need to navigate the complexities of market entry and build crucial partnerships to achieve our vision of making sustainable fashion mainstream. Solve's community can help us establish connections with potential collaborators and provide us with a platform to showcase our solution to a wider audience.

We believe that Solve is the ideal program for us to overcome the financial, technical, and market barriers that we face. We are not just seeking funds, but also non-monetary support, such as mentorship, expertise, and partnerships, which Solve offers to selected Solver teams. We are excited about the opportunity to be part of the Solve community.

Conventional embellishments are predominantly produced utilizing petroleum plastics and resins, and then assembled by hand into garments. With our product, there are manifest environmental benefits. Instead of being a major contributor of microplastics, our embellishment naturally decomposes. Rather than requiring fossil fuels to produce, they actually represent sequestered carbon during their lifespan.

A major mission of Cellsense is to overcome negative perceptions of sustainable products. Often it is assumed they will be qualitatively worse than their synthetic counterparts. Collaborations with numerous designers have shown these embellishments can have a diverse range of vivid colors, exhibit new properties such as bioluminescence, and have good enough form and texture for use in jewelry. 

Another major negative perception is that sustainable solutions for fashion cannot be scaled. This feeling stems from many proposed solutions relying on rare natural resources or byproducts that necessarily limit the product to being a boutique luxury. This problem informed our use of algae and cellulose, which are available to support any level of demands: algae literally grows exponentially.

It is not clear yet if our beads will be able to reach the extremely low cost of plastic embellishments, but with our novel value adding manufacturing techniques we can actually use the unique properties of our raw materials to achieve lower manufacturing costs. For example, we were able to demonstrate the autonomous production of a beaded panel in 20 minutes that would take 6 hours to complete by hand.

We chose to focused on embellishments because there are no scalable, sustainable options available on the market today, despite high demand. 

Cellsense bio-embellishments out-perfroms the properties available with petroleum alternatives. In addition to vivid colors achieved with bacterial dyes and a jade-like feel, we can offer unique features such as bioluminescence 

We leverage the unique properties of our biopolymers to automate the assembly of beaded garments. By utilizing a 3D-printed mold and robotically controlled syringes, we can deposit our biopolymer embellishments in complex patterns directly onto the textile. This process is not possible with traditional thermoplastics, and eliminates a significant amount of manual labor, resulting in rapid iteration, low lead times, and customized designs with intricate graphic patterns. Though embroidery machines exist, there is currently no technology available on the market that can automate the labor-intensive, repetitive beadwork that the fashion industry relies on outsourced, exploited labor practices for. With our solution, we are able to make sustainability cost-competitive and practical. 

Our goal is now to take this to scale. We are on our way with 3 successful pilots and requests from over 20  fashion, jewelry, and cosmetic brands to purchase our material; this is a testament to an unsatisfied market demand and desirable quality of our product. Here are interviews with our customer that showcase their experience using Cellsense materials - Interview 1, Interview 2

In Gujarat, we've witnessed the harmful consequences of the fast fashion industry: labor exploitation, environmental damage, and plastic pollution. Craftsperson labor for long hours in grueling conditions, beading garments that are swiftly discarded, leading to injuries such as carpal tunnel among laborers. Global plastic pollution from discarded microbeads was an additional concern. To alleviate the burden of repetitive tasks on laborers we designed a bead loom and an automated pipetting system to deposit biopolymer solution into divots on a hydrophobic 3D-printed bead loom, assembling large-scale beaded panels, avoiding repetitive threading. Algae, selected for its rapid growth, antimicrobial, water and heat-resistant, and carbon-sequestering properties, serves as our primary raw material. After realizing that the fashion industry produces 13 million tonnes of textile waste annually we decided to use this waste to source microcrystalline cellulose, which enhanced color stability and mechanical strength of the beads due to its excellent binding and crystallinity properties We also Validated biodegradability in different pH environments, confirming beads decompose naturally within 4 weeks in a compost. In one festive season alone, about 33 million embellishment garments are purchased, 7 million of which end up in landfill roughly after 5 wears. If we embellish such garments with biodegradable beads and sequins, we would significantly contribute to eliminating 35% of microplastic waste released into the world’s oceans from synthetic clothing. In cosmetics, a single cleaning product can contain about 360,000 plastic microbeads. Our micro beads can replace toxic exfoliants and could be healing to the skin and water systems.

Our Patent pending bio-embellishments, created from renewable algae-cellulose biopolymers, mimic jade in touch-feel. Encapsulating green fluorescent protein derived from the Aequorea Victoria jellyfish, the beads exhibit bioluminescence. This visual effect fosters a unique bond between consumers and the beads, portraying them as living entities rather than disposable commodities. 

Algae, selected for its rapid growth, antimicrobial, water and heat-resistant, and carbon-sequestering properties, serves as our primary raw material. These beads naturally decompose within 4 weeks in a home compost.

We utilize two primary manufacturing methods. To rapidly form larger embellished garments, we utilize an automated pipetting system to deposit biopolymer solution into divots on a hydrophobic 3D-printed loom, swiftly assembling large-scale beaded panels directly onto threads. The hydrophobic looms shape the droplets into spheres, and a liquid solution triggers final solidification. This system can concurrently process up to six colors to create complex patterns, without requiring custom tooling. The biopolymers encapsulate the loom's threads, forming circular beads, avoiding laborious, repetitive threading. 

To produce individual embellishments at massive scale, we utilize electrodeposition. Here, electrodes are placed into a solution of our material. The polymers are drawn towards the anode and will form hydrogel beads directly around it. By selectively masking the anode, we can control the shape of the embellishment, which can then be released from the electrode with a freeze-dry. This can be parallelized utilizing arrays of anodes.

Garments embellished with plastic beads are typically worn only five times on average before ending up in landfills. Due to their small size, these embellishments are challenging to separate and persist as sources of microplastic pollution. The colors used in dyeing these beads and sequins often come from toxic dyes, metallic coatings, and chemicals, raising ethical concerns about their continual use in fashion.

In prototyping Cellsense Bio-embellishments, we focused on sustainable algae-derived biopolymers, conducting over 130 tests to perfect our formula. We faced challenges with inconsistent color retention, which we addressed by sourcing microcrystalline cellulose from textile waste. This enhanced the color stability and mechanical strength of the beads, offering a combination of water resistance, compostability, appealing texture, and color from microbial dyes. Additionally, we incorporated bioluminescence for aesthetic value.

To understand labor issues, we interviewed Indian karigars who work up to 17 hours a day in harsh conditions, beading garments that are quickly discarded. This intense labor often results in injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome and severe back pain. To alleviate these burdens, we utilized an automated pipetting system (Opentron) to deposit biopolymer solution into divots on a hydrophobic 3D-printed bead loom, swiftly assembling large-scale beaded panels. This system processes up to six colors concurrently, creating complex patterns. The biopolymers encapsulate the loom's threads to form circular beads, significantly reducing assembly time  and enhancing efficiency for localized manufacturing—a feat not achievable with traditional thermoplastic.

Cellsense has received interest from over 20 brands, leading to collaborations with three, highlighting the practicality of our bio-embellishments. Notably, sustainability-driven Mara Hoffman, who hadn't used embellishments for 15 years due to lack of eco-friendly options, saw potential in our products. Our bio-embellishments extend to jewelry, where we've worked with two brands, addressing the industry's rapid trend cycles. Our solution has been tested commercially with well established brands and against strict performance  standards. We have received overwhelming positive feedback from consumers regarding our materials performance  and durability. Here are interviews with our customer that showcase their experience using Cellsense materials - Interview 1, Interview 2

We have a total of 5 team members working on our solution. Among them,1, our team lead is full-time, she is dedicated to various roles such as materials R&D, business strategy development, brand collaborations, and operations. Additionally, we have 2 part-time staff member contributing to our manufacturing system development and financial strategy. We also work with with 1 consultant/contractor who provides specialized expertise in polymer science and technical consulting on an as-needed basis. Our advisors have 20+ years of work experience in our target industry and they help determine marketing strategy, and make relevant introductions on a pro-bono basis.

Parasrampuria founded Cellsense in 2022 to develop sustainable alternatives to replace high-impact plastic and resin pollutants prevalent in the design and cosmetic industry. After winning a $20,000 grant from the Swarovski Foundation and a $100,000 grant from the New Labs Founder Fellowship Program, Parasrampuria worked with Dr.Reid and successfully developed a proprietary embellishment formula using algae and cellulose. Even before commercialization, the demand became apparent as 20+ design companies approached her. To scale the solution, Stefan was brought in he contributed to the development of the electrodeposition and automated beadwork machinery.

Our team is led by a woman of color, and we are very intentional about hiring individuals from underrepresented communities for leadership positions. We practice blind screening processes for resumes, and we actively participate in inclusivity programs to offer internships and job opportunities to students, from marginalized communities and diverse backgrounds.

Business Model Summary

Current Revenue Lines:

• Bio-embellishments: We have leveraged our first mover position to sell high-margin, sustainable embellishments to fashion, bridal, and jewelry brands. Our pricing ranges from $0.30 to $1.90 per embellishment against a production cost of $0.02 to $0.15. This product line caters primarily to B2B customers. We have already launched successful partnerships with three brands, proving the commercial viability of our material.

• Beadwork Panels (B2B): We produce customizable beaded panels for $20 per 1000 cm² and sell them for $40, significantly undercutting the standard market price of $300. This cost-effective solution enables designers to prototype and produce rapidly and locally. 

 New Revenue Lines:

• As Cellsense evolves, we intend to expand the Beadwork Panels into the B2C sector, democratizing access to bespoke beaded designs.

• Our biopolymer can be molded into various shapes. We plan to continue R&D to replace other sources of plastic in the fashion industry, such as buttons, zippers, lace, and other trims. 

• We will also continue R&D to develop exfoliant replacements and probiotic makeup ( using our microbial dyes ) for cosmetic applications. 

• We've secured initial funding and revenue through grants and direct sales, which have demonstrated our ability to generate profit and reinvest in business growth:
  

• • Grants Received:

    • $25,000 from Green Town Labs, ACCEL Program
    • $100,000 in resources from New Lab's Founder Fellowship Program
    • $20,000 from Swarovski Foundation's Creatives For Our Future Program
    • $5,000 from Tishman Environment and Design Center, Aronson Fellowship

  • Pilot Projects and Sales:

    • All three initial pilot projects were paid engagements, with two becoming repeat customers, showcasing sustained market demand.
    • Continuous inquiries from new clients interested in large-scale purchases highlight the growing market need for our sustainable products.

Capital Utilization:

• Funds have been invested in scaling production capabilities, such as acquiring automated pipetting systems to increase our manufacturing output of beadwork panels.

• Future Investments:

  • Planning to establish a pilot plant with six automated systems, aiming to produce approximately 140,000 panels annually. With panels priced at $40 each, we project an EBITDA of approximately $3.9 million, underlining our potential for high profitability and substantial market impact.

This strategic approach to revenue diversification and robust financial planning underscores Cellsense's commitment to becoming a leader in sustainable material innovation while ensuring long-term financial stability.