Geeks on a Plane – Company Profile: EcoFibre

Winner – 100% Pure NZ

Above: An ecstatic Shaun Tan with his trophy as the winner from stream 2.

 

Straight from winning the University of Auckland’s Spark $100k Entrepreneurs Challenge, EcoFibre was at it again on Tuesday evening winning their stream at the Geeks on a Plane rocket pitch competition.

EcoFibre uses a recyclable alternative to carbon fibre, manufacturing a product developed from flax and corn starch. Oliver McGregor, one of three founders of EcoFibre invented the material as part of his PhD thesis. It is the result of four years of meticulous testing and refining.

The years of work from the EcoFibre team first paid off in October when they took out the Spark challenge at the University of Auckland ahead of more than sixty other start-up businesses. The prize scored the EcoFibre team $25,000 in seed funding plus six-months of business incubation services from The Icehouse.

The product was one worth getting excited said Tan, who cited the product’s the wide range of applications ranging from aircraft interiors and snowboards to orthotics in an interview with The Herald in October.

“After testing and enhancements the product has been refined to show a 50 per cent improvement on any other natural fibre product in the market today,” McGregor said. “[EcoFibre is] not as strong as carbon fibre, but the offset to that is it’s not as expensive as carbon fibre and it’s recyclable.”

Tan was certainly the strong contender in a weak stream, as the second round of pitches was easily the most disappointing of the evening. Dave McClure remarked that the presentations ‘sucked ass,’ but did show interest in the concept that Tan was touting with EcoFibre.

Check out the newzealandinc event hub for the NZ Rocket Pitch Competition for all of  newzealandinc.com’s coverage, including exclusive interviews with the visiting geeks, profiles from today’s winning companies and more.