Launching one’s first startup — maybe a domestic software company, for example — could certainly be daunting. But creating a company to produce a physical, engineered product with international manufacturing and sales is next-level bold.
Alexa Bednarz laughingly admits she picked an “expert mode” business idea when she envisioned a company that makes a high-performing, low-cost bamboo building materials as her entrepreneurial debut.
But things are going well for the first-time CEO and founder.
The Tacoma, Wash.-based startup, which began five years ago as Eco-Shelter and is rebranding as Ocean, recently raised more than $1.8 million from angel investors. Ocean has received an additional $1.8 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) over the years. This month, construction starts on a manufacturing facility in India, and Bednarz expects next year to start selling corrugated bamboo panels in India and the U.S.
Bednarz is collaborating with Professor Vikram Yadama, director of Washington State University’s Composite Materials & Engineering Center, and others from WSU who are experts in creating building products from wood and other natural fibers.
The manufacturing process to make Ocean’s panels turns the bamboo into strands that are blended with an adhesive and formed into a mat. Then it’s pressed into a corrugated shape or other design. The panels are structurally strong, less expensive than reinforced concrete, and feature a paint coating that keeps them cooler. If properly maintained with paint or stains, the panels should last up to 25 years.
WSU officials are filing the patent application for the product, which Ocean will license.
The bamboo used for Ocean’s panels is locally grown in India, sustainable and a low-carbon alternative to many other materials. [Read more]