Objective
Vegea is a young start-up with a solid chemical background with long experience in natural polymers and industrial processes, constituted by researchers coming from the academy with a strong entrepreneurial inclination. It has already received several awards recognizing the value of its disruptive innovation, such as Start&Cup Award-2015, Start&Re-Start-2016, and H&M Global Change Award-2016 for a total funding of more than €300.000. The main scope of VegeaTextile project is the deployment of an absolute breakthrough innovation demonstrating a novel, cost-effective and eco-friendly process for the production of organic textile and introducing in the European leather goods market a new kind of bio-textile using a non-animal and renewable raw material, considered up today an agricultural waste: the grape marc. In fact, the production process can be classified “low impact” for the environment since it makes minimal use of chemical reagents or additional water, and at the contrary, it produces reusable water from the grape marc exsiccation (60% w/w). Our innovation will allow leather goods manufacturers to answer to the increasing customers’ awareness about environmentalist and animalist concerns, to propose a new product with same quality of common leather and, at the same time, to find an alternative and renewable raw material, helping them to overcome stringent regulations about animal treats and tanning processes. Upon project length we aim at industrializing the process production by 2022, reaching a forecasted production capability of 4.5 million m2/yr, the ambitious business objectives of € 8,64 million net profits over 4 yrs of commercialization (2022), and consequently a greater-than-market ROI (26%) and profitability (22%). For the launch of VegeaTextile by 2019, we foresee a total investment of more than €900.000 of which €801.875 budgeted for the Phase-2.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energy
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcolors
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringtextiles
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcoating and films
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterials
Programme(s)
- H2020-EU.3.2. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy Main Programme
- H2020-EU.3.2.4. - Sustainable and competitive bio-based industries and supporting the development of a European bioeconomy
- H2020-EU.3.2.1. - Sustainable agriculture and forestry
- H2020-EU.2.3.1. - Mainstreaming SME support, especially through a dedicated instrument
- H2020-EU.3.2.2. - Sustainable and competitive agri-food sector for a safe and healthy diet
Funding Scheme
SME-2 - SME instrument phase 2Coordinator
24121 Bergamo
Italy
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.