Postcode Lottery Green Challenge

2008 WINNER EBEN BAYER

'THE BOOST HAS BEEN HUGE'

Ecovative's 'natural Styrofoam' business mushrooms after win

It started out as a class project. In 2006, Eben Bayer, then an engineering undergraduate at New York's Rensslaer Polytechnic Institute, wanted to make an eco-friendly insulation material. As a child, he'd noticed how wild mushrooms grew strong root fibres, and in these, he found his solution.

Three years later, after winning €500,000 in the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge 2008, Eben's firm, Ecovative Design, is fitting out a factory for its fungus-based insulation and packaging products. The company expects to be shipping at volume by next summer.

"Winning allowed us to connect with potential customers and provided us with the capital to make the system to allow us to deliver to the customer," Eben says.

Their natural Styrofoam replacements, the building insulation Greensulate™ and the packaging material Acorn™, are made by growing mushroom roots around local agricultural byproducts like buckwheat or cottonseed hulls. No electricity or fossil fuel is needed, and the materials are compostable and recyclable. "Our equipment is actually this organism," Eben says. "So we need lots of storage space." The Challenge cash has helped them to get it.

Growing like fungus

Ecovative has rented a 743-square-metre office and warehouse that will begin producing prototypes and small batches by year's end. Eben says they'll likely be making and shipping 10,000 Acorn™ units a month by mid-2010.

Some of the prize money has also gone toward beefing up the company's team. CEO Eben, chief scientist Gavin McIntyre, and COO Edward Browka have been joined by a design engineer, a lab manager and several interns.

The Green Challenge win has had immaterial benefits, too. "The validation boost has been huge for us when talking to potential venture capitalists or larger corporate partners, and individual customers," Eben says. Although the building industry – Greensulate™’s main potential market – is suffering a slump, potential buyers of Acorn™ packaging are enthusiastic. Eben says he's confident of getting orders this year.

The media coaching given to finalists was "very helpful" when local press and TV stations came calling, says Eben. After they reported on the win, his old school in Vermont contacted him and invited him to do a test project. Ecovative has now installed Greensulate™ panels in a gymnasium wall, with monitoring equipment for seeing how the material fares. It wouldn't have happened without press coverage. "And a potential customer heard about us the same way," Eben says.

Only the beginning

If things go according to plan, Ecovative products will be everywhere someday. "Our vision is to develop all kinds of plastics and foam," Eben says, such as a balsa-like product that could be used in wind turbine blade cores. Ideas for the longer term include structural cores for furniture and 100-percent-fungus bookcases.

But right now, getting the factory running is job number one – those potential customers are waiting. An ambitious graduate can do a lot with €500,000. Or indeed, with €200,000 – Eben estimates that Ecovative has only spent about 40 percent of its winnings. How will they use the rest? Check back soon for more news on how Postcode Lottery Green Challenge winners are using their prizes to build a greener world.

From left: Ed Browka, Gavin McIntyre and Eben Bayer.