Inside The Startup Reinventing The $6 Trillion Chemical Manufacturing Industry

Solugen combines enzymes with metal catalysts to make chemical reactions more efficient. The founders say this chemoenzymatic process reached a 96% yield, compared with 60% for a conventional approach. The company uses corn syrup as a feedstock and adjusts the process to make different products.

Sean was exploring direct hydrogen peroxide synthesis when Gaurab described peroxide production by pancreatic cancer cells. The founders traced it to an enzyme and wondered whether enzymes could work alongside industrial metal catalysts. They tested the idea against practical measures such as enzyme lifetime and product concentration.

Instead of raising heavily to build a large plant, the founders used $10,000 from an MIT competition to build a PVC reactor. They sold their first peroxide in 2016 to three float spa owners, delivering it themselves and finding a way around retail distribution costs. After YC, they moved to Houston and built a 1,500-gallon pilot reactor for an oil and gas field trial.

Solugen built Bioforge 1 from equipment assembled in five locations and shipped to Houston. The plant can store about 800,000 pounds of corn syrup and runs continuously. Its 10,000-gallon bubble column scales up the original reactor; the founders say one Coke bottle of enzyme can produce two to four tanker trucks of product.

Solugen fills customer trucks at about 300 gallons per minute and also provides trucks and logistics. The founders say locating manufacturing assets near customers helps control shipping costs and compete with larger suppliers. They plan to apply enzymes and metal catalysts across multiple kinds of manufacturing assets and emphasize a culture willing to be wrong while solving new customer problems.