How Solugen is Saving the $5 Trillion Chemical Industry (Co-founders Gaurab Chakrabarti & Sean Hunt)
How Solugen is Saving the $5 Trillion Chemical Industry (Co-founders Gaurab Chakrabarti & Sean Hunt)  
Podcast: The Peel with Turner Novak
Published On: Wed Nov 15 2023
Description: Gaurab Chakrabarti and Sean Hunt are the Co-founders of Solugen, which replaces petroleum based products with plant-derived substitutes without sacrificing affordability or performance. They met playing poker in college, kickstarted the company with $10k from an MIT pitch competition, and have since scaled the business to over nine-figures in revenue. Solugen has raised over $642 million from investors like Fifty Years, Lowercarbon Capital, Founders Fund, Refactor Capital, and Cantos Ventures. — Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://bit.ly/47sxTQ0— Topics discussed: How the chemicals industry touches 25% of US GDP Why the industry is like real estate: fragmented and focused on asset utilization The reason chemicals companies have terrible NPS scores How Solugen’s manufacturing process converts plants and C02 into chemicals Meeting over a game of poker while getting their PhD’s Winning $10k from an MIT pitch competition to capture 10% of the float spa market in Dallas, Texas Why the first wave of Cleantech startup fail Why logistics and supply chain are the biggest problems in Chemicals Their framework for thinking big, but taking little steps to get there Running their homemade metal catalyst reactor at YC Demo Day Launching, scaling, and selling a CPG wipes company to prove their chemicals worked Building their first factory (the BioForge) on the site of an exploded wax distillery Their strategy for getting large, multinational companies to try their products — Referenced: YC Application video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tItLPnLIH4o Solugen - The First Carbon Negative Molecule Factory: https://jeffburke.substack.com/p/solugen-the-first-carbon-negative Solugen - The Century of Biology: https://centuryofbio.com/p/solugen — Where to find Gaurab: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gaurabc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaurabchakrabarti — Where to find Sean: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TungstenSeanide LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/huntsean — Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak — Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io —For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform