Mushrooms Are Now The New Leather! | VenturePreneurs | Full Episodes

from mushrooms to this Indonesian tech startup my co tech is on a mission to transform the fashion and furniture industry instead using animal we are using mushroom technology our mycelium feather is more sustainable durable it's a portable then the big orders are coming in but can they meet demand if a unique product however I do have some concern with scalability cost and are they targeting the right market my big question is who is this brand for three goals in three months my co tech takes on the venture ponerse challenge [Music] [Music] we are bias a company who develop animal leather replacement we started in 2015 we have five co-founders different backgrounds so let's meet the team and see where the magic happens my co tech wants to change the world by giving consumers a more sustainable alternative to conventional leather based in the outskirts of Bandung in Indonesia the startup producers material made from a mushroom mycelium just like how plants have roots mycelium is the root part of the mushroom so as you can see here this is our workshop we just use the mycelium part here and then we transform it into different time of shapes like this one a simple box or a complex shapes it's only take five days to grow and to harvest the letter after we harvest the letter there's still a byproducts and then we turn it into panels our unique selling proposition is our product is sustainable because we don't need to grow animal for about two years we just throw the mushroom in five days and cos twice we consume less water less energy and also less resources because it's not come from cows we use agricultural waste so it's basically a closed-loop product from waste to product it's an upcycling the team spent about three years on research and development and produce its first commercial product in 2017 from one line of production we can produce leather and panels and the letter goes to the brand and designers so we cook creating with them to create watch a Snickers eats and the back to produce the mushroom mycelium sawdust this mixed with various nutrients to create the perfect breeding ground for mushrooms this is then placed with mushroom spores in individual bags called bag logs we put all the back logs here in in aggravation room for about one month after the leather is harvested it is treated and colored we started a magnetic since 2015 so back then we sell edible mushroom however we see this potential in the technology our business model is assisted business and our main positioning is as a material producers currently we are focusing on five potential points three of them are SMEs and two of them are multi-billion dollar company big brands with big clients come big demands my co tech must find a way to increase its production capacity and quickly so to manufacture a pair of shoes its required six sheets of Walia my codex current production is about eight thousand four hundred sheets per annum are about 4200 square feet which can roughly produce 1400 pairs of shoes still a far cry from where my co tech wants to be with 1 million square feet how we deliver the Kickstarter projects the second one is how we deliver the Osaka exhibition and the third one the biggest one I think how we scale up the production up to 1 million square feet per annum actually we have been quite late for the delivery of the Kickstarter around 1 or 2 months late why do we delayed it anything because of our last month's contamination rate is quite high but hopefully starting this month I'm pretty confident that we can deliver them but I was like what is challenges we're currently faced the challenge is how to choose the best design we already make some prototypes and hopefully by the end of this month we could have the final decision regarding the 1 million square foot that we are currently aiming for do you have any strategy to death the first strategy is from the production we you need to create more proper procedure for all process the second thing is about the funding to get some advice on expanding the business Adi heads to Singapore to meet with venture capitalists Leslie of Red Dog ventures for how big is your planet currently and what's the plan in growing facility we already have a pilot plan we can replicate it with a bigger scale so the plan now it's about try square meter I think for if we want to scaling up it's quite easy so what we're expecting this thing to be we reason about 10 million so this 6 million we're going to use it as focus on production facility so the rs4 million is focused on working capital in the next year in 2021 we can start reduce say if you can type 1 million it's perfect ingenuity for 2 million u.s. dollar per year you are trying to raise 10 million dollars and that 10 million above with 6 million is going to go into building your production manufacturing facility and you supposed to generate 2 million dollars out of six million dollars facility to me that number in terms of the investment versus the revenue that you're going to generate dozen like this in life I do have some concern with scalability cause particularly the manufacturing facility and the tab review it will generate which really sound like quite costly facility as adi looks to rework the funding strategy all the lines up meetings with some local partners to check on the Kickstarter campaign deliveries Indonesian startup micro tech is looking for ways to increase production to meet orders that are starting to roll in from the material that they make from mushrooms they've roped in the local community to help boost supplies but first they have to teach the local farmers how to grow the right kind of mushrooms less democratic it was something no group a man could have been to innumerable and even together if we sin and Michael Chuck empowers women like madam Kamala by teaching them new skills and giving them work at their Factory buggy buggy Kabul some pay them some me lad oh let them see me learn plan but who come aquatic follow it's up to me let me with that combine happen ticket rally a totally totally get nothing to be democratic so you're here in team ahi we're a mitotic located this area is one of the biggest mushroom producer in West Java there's a lot of mushroom farmer here we grow oysters mushroom like this one but somehow it's not suitable to grow this mushroom as our material so all team come up with the idea of having a different substrate beef in mushroom type we call it mushroom pingzhi [Music] so they'll be grateful to collaborate with local farmers here because first be locally sourced the raw material second thing they already have the technology so we don't have to reinvent the wheels we just tweak the methods the third thing is it's easy to scale up the production they are also encouraging local farmers like Marin Kamala to switch to farming Ling Zhi mushrooms Obama said that the Dhamma sukha nah come on you two let's eat mushroom farmers here are facing some challenges to grow lingzhi mushroom because usually they just grow also mushroom what we do is we give them more knowledge how to grow this mushroom how to handle the mushroom so in the future they can easily grow this type of mushroom in downtown bundle Aldi is about to meet my Kotex design partners Paulo nusantara designs watches for my Kotak and they must have 90 to watch us ready for the Kickstarter campaign Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform where people can raise funds my Kotex production hit a speed bump following a contamination issue at the plant we actually receive the you last month and probably targeting our production plan in October we'll have probably 70 to 80 percent of the whole order from Kickstarter we just have to make sure that we will give you myself the my selling letter absolutely absolutely I think I think the the punctuality here is the key we are currently on track with that since the problem with contamination is no longer existed fortunately Microtech have solved that problem with more sterilized process all these hoping that things are going smoothly with the other design partner in the Kickstarter campaign CAF craft is another one of our partners and I'm here to check on the progress of the Kickstarter campaign the Kickstarter commitment 25 card holders I'm the dreamer see the process from the marijuana at about a slight ocotal process are given top at interest pocket onion there are any new features that you wanna put in the card yes didn't fully NATO get iodine II what are the customer sales you can dim Raza be moon didn't care in this rotten wanker thank you so much bro risky has been in the leather business since 2010 he picked up the trade from his parents feedback from risky is extremely valuable for my Kotak well it does him a c-diddy PC can do Lu merely a messy Pakistan basa I got him but didn't get hakuna can convey I mean basic mean yep you didn't and embel Rajesh the Italian additional input T when put it on basically era visalia know Kim Cassini see a man walking America darica pass pass a mentor in ecology Suhani on drove up the kickstarter deliveries are back on track despite the setback from contamination but the micro tech team is running out of time to finalize the product lineup for the exhibition in osaka we still need to find a better fashion of the pattern excellent [Music] [Music] this Indonesian startup produces by material from mushrooms and the team is looking forward to showcasing products made from what they grow at the 2019 living and design exhibition in Osaka Japan the event is now just weeks away Osaka exhibition will be October yeah how's the progress yeah we happen make a decision which one will we bring to Osaka but we all have made some alternative for the products and we make furniture and some installation these are the furniture and we already made the prototype - it's a Bible and we try to bend it by make some pattern using laser cut so it could be been like this shipping how we ship - yes it's quite a lot of volume I think it's better for us to meet a modular furniture installation so we could keep the shipping efficient I think since we're using this you can use a flat back system that's a good idea I think we should make it simpler yeah I think Osaka is quite a great space so we should focus on one piece like we still need to find a bit the better fashion of the pattern we still have like two months [Music] after some trial and error the team is ready to show off their best in Osaka [Music] good morning everyone right now we are in Osaka we will attend the living and design exhibition in Osaka the team has decided that the centerpiece for the exhibition will be a display of lampshades made out of buyable by a bow is a board composite made out of mycelium and does not contain any harmful chemicals it is malleable and easy to transport also on display a range of michael tech products from shoes to watches the exhibition in osaka is not the only event Maiko tech is attending over in singapore our DS representing the company in a fashion incubator program hopefully with this program i can learn about fashion industry and the market ready the bridge Fashion Incubator or T BFI is a tough initiative we're from textile and fashion Federation I hope that at the end of these 30 weeks every brand will really have the set of tools that they would need to see them through growing their business for Microtech vegan leather is much needed in the market now there are very few players in the world after this we were all very excited to to help them and nurture them and bring them aboard but Adi is unsure where the micro tech should use the term vegan leather for the biomaterials that it produces he asks brand consultant yog for advice what do you think about adding vegan leather as our value proposition I think the word itself is a kind of kind of fighting word that people use a lot Pro and against and it's terrible and it's great and everything so so that's this big discussion going on I think you narrow your target if you do that because the vegans they have a good skill of finding things so they will find you anyway but others could be driven away just by that word so I wouldn't use the word I will just tell it as it is this is my brand and this is what it's made of whoever likes it should go for it okay when you came up with a brand you came up with the name the name is what so mike attack mycotic is our company name okay but that's not the brand name mm-hmm so for the letter products like this we call it my leer stands for mycelium matter okay but people won't know that people will know that so we put a Maile logo on this product let's say in in the lining in the packaging or in label as well but it doesn't mean anything right so people will be maybe wondering what it means how will they know yeah so because what we do is we collaborate with brands we tell our story like in our environmental impact what how we made this product to the end customer and somehow the end customer and knows oh okay this leather mushroom leather is made by Mikah Tech and they have been off my Lea because naming is really important right the name can say something about the product what it is or it can be just some arbitrary name and you just have to push and have a lot of brand communication to fill the name with meaning before they even see a product they need to be interested how will they find out yes they will find out about our grand social media channel and our website if you're lucky enough I go on YouTube I look at different videos and maybe I'm interested in alternative materials and I may find your video exactly and then it's a really really terrible video that my little niece who's eight could have done because it has emojis it has terrible music so is this the kind of impression you want to create for your brand so we published that video a year ago at that moment actually we just know okay we can make this material and then at that time we don't have that kind of budget to create a brand persona we want to validate okay we can create this product I have no problem with what you show I have a problem with how you show it right because for a brand every single point where the consumer has some contact with the brand is a touch point mm-hmm and every touch points touch point creates an impression I like how brutally honest your comments on our video and now we are hiring for an agency to improve our video and websites [Music] so over the past three months we take steps to reach 1 million square feet production per annum and that's why we are looking for next fundraising the second one is preparing new facility and the third one is collaborating with more than the designer to cook he orders so currently we produce 4200 square feet per annum we want to scale it to 60,000 by 2021 and the following year 250,000 hopefully by 2023 we can reach 1 million square feet and very Kickstarter campaign will receive 1 as 50 orders we face problem in July about contamination however the tip is already solve the problem right now we have complete 40% of the deliveries and hopefully by the end of this year we complete all the orders so the Osaka exhibition is success this is our first time entering Japan market this gives us a confidence for us to explore and expand to other offices work [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 42,028

Keywords: cna, cna insider, cna insider business, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, mushroom, leather, Mycotech

Id: ykWIACD6u8E

Length: 22min 59sec (1379 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 18 2020