Next
This will not be the first time animal leather has been disrupted – the 20th century saw the rise of artificial leathers synthesized from petrochemicals at a third of the cost. They now represent about two thirds of the overall leather market. But this alternative also generates environmental impacts related to contamination by plastics, CO2 footprint, and the release of toxic chemicals to the environment. Hence, there is an urgent need to develop NEXT and new alternatives to both animal and synthetic leather.
Gen
The objective is to develop cultured leather which require less time of manufacturing, without land or chemicals, and much lower water and energy inputs. At high scale, cultured leather can provide a safe, sustainable and economical alternative to the traditional tanning and chemical industry and it will help to mitigate the climate emergency.
From a technical perspective, our approach integrates innovations in cell culture and biofabrication to get a leather with the best properties of durability, strenght and elasticity, offering GENetic solutions to coming GENerations.
Leather
Beef cattle are raised for an average of 18 months before being slaughtered, at which point the process of turning hides into leather begins. The full tanning, dyeing, and finishing process takes between six to eight weeks. After the hide is processed, it may be shipped to finished goods companies to be cut and sewn into products. Next-Gen Leather addressed this challenge by developing an eco-friendly leather-like material that requires less time, water and energy to manufacture and employs no harmful chemicals: BacLEATHER®.
«As recognition of this innovative approach BacLEATHER® project has been granted under the EU SME Instrument programm Phase 1. Furthermore, we have also received two EU Seals of Excellence that means a quality label that consolidates our project as a highly innovative company at international level».
Team
Previously developed by Patent Shoes, BacLEATHER® project has received funding on 2021 from BeAble Capital to create the new company Next-Gen Leather. Both the investment as the participation of BeAble investors´ board in the project will allow production is scale up and deploy BacLEATHER® into consumer goods.
Board of investors
BeAble Capital SGEIC SA, Venture of reference in Science Equity (Technology Transfer funds focused on Deep Science), through its fund BeAble Innvierte Kets Fund, FCR, invest in Seed and Early Stage in the Industrial High Technology sector with the goal of transferring to society the technologies born in academic and research institutions in Spain and providing support for transforming breakthrough discoveries into products through start-ups.
Contact Info
Qube Technology Park
C/ Santiago Grisolía, 2
28760 – Tres Cantos – Madrid
info@next-genleather.com