We’re pleased to contribute once again to JEC World 2024 Startup Booster Competition alongside partners from Airbus and Owens Corning. Earlier this month, we reviewed the impressive pool of applicants in the composite industry and selected the finalists that convey originality, innovation, industry impact, sustainability, quality, and market potential.
Hailing from 34 countries, this year’s applicants exemplify the strong diversity and ingenuity of the composite industry. It is certain that the future of composites and advanced materials is bright and full of innovative projects, in particular bio-sourced materials, circular models, and artificial intelligence technology.
For context, JEC World’s Startup Booster is the leading startup competition in the composite and advanced materials industry, with the mission to discover and assess the best innovations. At JEC World in Paris (March 5-7, 2024), this year’s 20 finalists will pitch to top industry experts, display their innovations at the Startup Village, gain digital visibility, receive personal coaching, and interact directly with Startup Booster’s jury and partners, among other benefits.
This year’s jury panel consists of:
- Jelle Bloemhof – Head of Composite Manufacturing Technologies, Airbus
- Karl-Heinz Fueller – Manager Future Exterior and Materials, Mercedes-Benz
- Florent Illat – Head of Safran Corporate Ventures, Safran
- Raphaele Leyendecker – Managing Director, Techstars Sustainability Paris
- Christopher Skinner – Vice President of Strategic Marketing and R&D, Owens Corning
Discover the 20 Top Composites Startups in 2024
Products & Materials
BioHalo (Denmark): Their mission is to introduce bio-based materials that serve as safe, eco-friendly and high-performance replacements for harmful PFAS.
BioTwin (United Kingdom): BioTwin’s vision is to revolutionize construction and build zero carbon villages and cities for a sustainable world. They want to innovate, collaborate and make a difference in sustainable building materials. BioTwin are proud to present our first innovation, a low carbon wall stud made of hemp and resin, which will help the construction sector meet embodied carbon demands.
CARBOCON (Germany): CARBOCON is an independent service provider in the field of the innovative building material carbon-reinforced concrete. They operate in different areas of business, ranging from civil engineering services to introducing new products and processes to the market. In this way, CARBOCON advocates progress and sustainability in the building industry.
Cellexcel (United Kingdom): As a chemistry-based technology company, Cellexcel provides the key to unlock the use of biomaterials and radically change industry’s carbon footprint. It does this through molecular modification and not a coating. The Cellexcel™ process chemically modifies the cellulose by delivering and then attaching a compound related to the targeted performance property. By attaching a hydrophobic compound, the resistance to moisture can be positively impacted enabling biomaterials to be used in more demanding applications, that can then lead to the replacement of high embedded emission materials.
High Temperature Material Systems (United Kingdom): Their core mission is to develop bespoke Ceramic Matrix Composite (CMC) materials and to push the boundaries of innovation. Through cutting-edge research and development capabilities, the startup strives to pioneer novel matrix chemistries that yield improved performance, durability, and functionality.
Nano Electronics (South Korea): By utilizing ultra-fine nano threads through electrospinning, Nano Electronics creates copper nanofiber films with high electrical conductivity, resulting in efficient conductive heating elements with exceptional heat transfer capabilities. As a result, they have achieved a nano-surface heating element with up to 89% power efficiency compared to traditional heating wires, providing three times greater heat generation efficiency and instantaneous heating.
RECARBON (Italy): RECARBON gives new value to carbon fiber wastes, creating, producing, and offering innovative ready-to-use intermediate products based on recycled carbon fiber. RECARBON has developed a functional approach for manufacturing products in the form of both thermoplastic Organosheets, thermoset Prepregs, and sandwich panels, with different combinations of skins and cores.
Sargassum Eco Lumber (USA): The proliferation of Sargassum, has become a global concern, notably affecting countries in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Atlantic coasts of Africa and South America. The issue is compounded by the persistent pollution of polyethylene plastics, primarily MDPE and HDPE, which degrade over decades and release micro plastics that affect marine life and human health. In response, Sargassum Eco Lumber proposes a novel approach that leverages this environmental challenge by repurposing Sargassum and polyethylene waste into a commercially viable, sustainable building material.
SpacEngineer (Portugal): In 2018, the problem of small Space debris was presented to SpacEngineer team. Due to the previous experience of the team in the ballistic, in 2019 SpacEngineer was created. The goal of the SpacEngineer was to develop composites, with a high amount of green materials, flexible, and the capability to dissipate a high amount of impact energy. With this objective, Impact2Space was born. Currently, the technology is under validation for aeronautic and aerospace applications.
ZILA BioWorks (USA): ZILA has developed a patented bio-epoxy resin for use in industrial composites, coatings, and adhesives. They have identified clear steps to a 60% reduction in carbon footprint compared to petroleum-based epoxies. And their vitrimer technology can help manufacturers deal with the end of life of their products. ZILA formulates our bio-resin systems so manufacturers can adopt without any retooling.
Process, Manufacturing & Equipment
CarboScreen (Germany): CarboScreen offers cutting-edge sensor technology in combination with AI-based online monitoring to significantly reduce production cost while increasing product quality of carbon fibers and reliability of oven equipment.
Componous (Greece): Componous specializes in embedding optical fiber sensors in composite structures. These sensors can monitor multiple analytes with proven field capabilities. Componous revolutionizes the market with cost-effective, in-house-developed sensor readout units with state-of-the-art specifications.
Eddytec (Netherlands): Eddytec is a spin-out from the University of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. Eddytec’s ambition is to transform defect detection in carbon fibre composites making it fast, simple and affordable. The technology is based on eddy currents and allows for easy detection of cracks and imperfections in a variety of applications including manufacture and maintenance of aircraft, wind turbines and cars. Eddytec’s sensor and software solution reduces measurement time and complexity of data collection and enables technical personnel with various levels of experience to interpret the results increasing usability. The benefits of Eddytec’s product is that it can reduce waste during manufacturing, simplify maintenance and safely extend the lifetime of materials. With that it will contribute to an efficient use of our resources while reducing cost and complexity.
Elementag (Italy): Elementag is the latest technology developed by Particular Materials. It represents a radical innovation for supply chain traceability and anticounterfeiting. By using nanoparticles as inorganic fingerprints that can be applied to virtually any product or material, we can guarantee its authenticity in a quick and reliable way by scanning it with a portable device. Elementag overcomes the main limitations of traditional technologies (QR/barcodes, NFC, RFID): invisible, processing-resistant, hard to replicate and fully embedded.
Fiberior (Germany): The sustainable solution to the energy transport problem! Through their innovative manufacturing process, Fiberior are able to produce a cost-effective pipeline system for the transport and storage of hydrogen. Compared to conventional steel pipelines their system is made of fiber-reinforced thermoplastics. In addition to numerous advantages, they can also be utilized for hydrogen storage in the pipeline grid. This unique feature is a key aspect in enabling the transformation of the energy industry towards renewable energy sources.
Holy Technologies (Germany): Holy Technologies is on a mission to lightweight the future of mobility, by designing sustainable production systems that are extremely scalable. Holy is the developer of a machine learning-enhanced additive manufacturing system for composite components. The company helps innovation leaders across industries to make their structural carbon fiber components up to 30% lighter, 50% cheaper and 100% recyclable. The technology addresses 80% of component types, ranging from automotive, medical, and sports equipment, to aerospace and wind turbine blades.
MOB-E-SCRAP (France): MOB-E-SCRAP is a French startup founded in 2021 to deploy breakthrough patented delamination technology on various markets: electronic scrap, composites, solar panels, batteries… By submitting composites to high intensity and high frequency impacts, the product can separate the fibers (glass, carbon) which keep a length up to 50mm and resin which is pulverized. The company have built a demonstrator at industrial scale in France and are now looking for partners to deploy our technology on the composite recycling market.
REINFORCE3D (Spain): Reinforce3D is a start-up aimed to further develop and commercialize the Continuous Fibre Injection Process (CFIP) technology. CFIP is a completely new composite processing method which unlocks new capabilities unimaginable before, such as the ability to place continuous fibers in all directions following complex trajectories, to reinforce any material including plastics, metals and ceramics, or to integrally join different parts. “Delta” is the first ever commercial CFIP machine, enabling the efficient manufacturing of highly optimized 3D composite structures at industrial scale.
TechnoCarbon Technologies (France): TechnoCarbon designs, develops, manufactures and sells components and systems made of the first sustainable, ultra-low-carbon composite material to outperform steel and reinforced concrete. Their patented technologies enable deep decarbonization, lifetime extension, weight and environmental footprint reduction.
3P.COM (South Korea): 3P.COM designs, develops recyclable and affordable hydrogen tanks according to customers’ requirement and specification using a new optimization design methodology and in-house design tools, transfers the technology license and provides prototype hydrogen tanks meeting performing industrial standard safety requirements. 3P.COM has customers in India, Taiwan, Japan, Brazil and China.
We cannot wait to hear from the finalists and learn more about the future of the composite industry!