Three months ago, a group of five WUR students completed their Venture Creation course. Now they have a new business: Laminara. They want to make sportswear out of seaweed.
The students are now working on a business plan at the StartHub office in Plus Ultra II, explains Felix Holdorf. He is doing a Master’s in Urban Environmental Management and is one of the founders of Laminara.
The students have to organize a supply chain to make the sportswear. They first want to import farmed seaweed from around Europe, then extract the bioplastic PLA from the seaweed, and produce the clothing with this bioplastic.
The students want to make sportswear out of farmed seaweed
They aim to produce athletics shirts and base layers for various sports, says Holdorf. Laminara plans to outsource production to start with. The students are looking for manufacturers in the Netherlands that can produce PLA textiles and clothing. They want to launch their first products in the next 12 months.
‘It is a very young market,’ says Holdorf. Seaweed prices are still high at the moment. Laminara wants to buy the raw material from the aquaculture sector. It remains to be seen whether textiles made of seaweed can compete with those made from other bioplastics. PLA clothing made from maize is already on the market. Laminara is still in the early stages, so the students could use some extra brains. They are especially interested in new team members with expertise in biotechnology and chemistry.
There are about 100 companies on campus. We introduce them to you in Resource. This time, Laminara in Plus Ultra II.
