Gaurab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt are the Co-founders of Solugen, which replaces petroleum based products with plant-derived substitutes without sacrificing affordability or performance. They met playing poker in college, kickstarted the company with $10k from an MIT pitch competition, and have since scaled the business to over nine-figures in revenue.
Solugen has raised over $642 million from investors like Fifty Years, Lowercarbon Capital, Founders Fund, Refactor Capital, and Cantos Ventures.
—
Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://bit.ly/47sxTQ0
—
Topics discussed:
- How the chemicals industry touches 25% of US GDP
- Why the industry is like real estate: fragmented and focused on asset utilization
- The reason chemicals companies have terrible NPS scores
- How Solugen’s manufacturing process converts plants and C02 into chemicals
- Meeting over a game of poker while getting their PhD’s
- Winning $10k from an MIT pitch competition to capture 10% of the float spa market in Dallas, Texas
- Why the first wave of Cleantech startup fail
- Why logistics and supply chain are the biggest problems in Chemicals
- Their framework for thinking big, but taking little steps to get there
- Running their homemade metal catalyst reactor at YC Demo Day
- Launching, scaling, and selling a CPG wipes company to prove their chemicals worked
- Building their first factory (the BioForge) on the site of an exploded wax distillery
- Their strategy for getting large, multinational companies to try their products
—
Referenced:
—
Where to find Gaurab:
—
Where to find Sean:
—
Where to find Turner:
—
Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io
—
For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
