Breathing leather

Polybion, a groundbreaking project at the convergence of nature’s designs and cutting-edge technology, introduces the future of fashion — fruit waste-based leather alternative Celium™. Axel and Alexis Gómez Ortigoza, the co-founders of Polybion, discover the inspiration behind their innovative venture of the first-of-a-kind “industrial-scale facility for the production of bacterial cellulose”, the pivotal moments that shaped its evolution, and the ethical values driving the transformation of waste into sustainable biomaterials.

hube: Polybion is an excitingly unique project that focuses on ‘edge-cutting models inspired by nature’s own designs. What common vision or shared goals inspired both of you to take on the journey of creating Polybion?

Axel Gómez Ortigoza: Want to go ahead, Alexis?

Alexis Gómez Ortigoza: You can go ahead, I’ll complement this one.

Axel: Our journey started ten years ago when I was in the last year of my Bachelor’s. I participated in a competition in synthetic biology called iGEM, which is held at MIT in Massachusetts every year. My brother Alexis and I wanted to co-found a company for biomaterials. Back then biomaterials weren’t a thing; nobody knew about them. People thought we were crazy trying to do this. Still, we decided to go for it and started working with mycelium materials. Things started to move along, and it led us to start working with bacterial cells, a better technology.

We can go back even further. We were lucky to be born into a family of entrepreneurs as well as biologists and chemists, so we were raised in a very natural environment. As kids, we had any pet you could imagine and we also used to play with test tubes in the laboratory of my mom when we were young.  I think all of this combined led us to where we are now.

Alexis: Yeah, I would say that the single most important thing that inspired us was what Axel has just said — our mom and dad. I think that the drive that we have for technology came from them. Like Axel said, we grew up surrounded by laboratories and by nature. Everything just fell into place; being born into an entrepreneurial family that has been consistently working in technology.

h: Can you recount any specific moments or conversations that served as catalysts for the creation of Polybion?

Alexis: I would say there were a couple. The starting point was when we applied for our first public grant, and we got it. The second — when we were about to quit but our first mycelium project actually ended up growing.

Axel: For me, the first decisive moment happened when I was 12. Back then I first watched a CD of the future, like a daydream: the buildings were covered in green living plants, everything was alive. This is the memory I still see very clearly. The other moment was at MIT when a piece of mycelium was being passed around. I touched the material and realised — this is the future. Similar to the other idea I just told you.

As Alexis described, it was crazy. That grant from the government was very small, it was maybe $25,000. Then we had some investors and they agreed to add the remaining funding part. However, just one week before the deadline they decided they didn’t want to go through with it. So, in one week we had to constitute a new company and Alexis had to put all his life savings into the project. It was a very crazy week, but then we pulled that off.

Alexis: At first, we tried to get a license to use these mycelium materials. We never got a reply, and that also pushed us to apply for these grants and kick-start the company.

Axel: With the grant, we managed to build a very small pilot of what we thought the process was supposed to be like. It was wrong, the machines did not work. It was such a new process, we were basically reinventing the wheel. After a year of doing the same experiment every day we still didn’t get any good results, I was about to quit.

It was like a movie. We were having a beer on a Friday and I told Alexis: “You know, man, this is not working. I think I’m gonna quit, and I’m gonna go for the PhD in Canada”. And then I came into the lab on Monday and it worked. So, I took that as a sign from the universe.

h: You position Polybion as a project where “performance meets possibility”. How do you envision Polybion’s technology influencing societal and cultural norms beyond industrial applications?

Axel: We want to demonstrate that waste is a human invention. There is no such thing as waste in nature. We, humans, invented this waste production model that scales up capitalism. We want to communicate to the world that there are other production models where “waste” is an asset. We turn waste into leather alternatives by working with nature. This might be our only chance to bring better possibilities for future generations.

Alexis: We have proven that bio innovation will come from everywhere at once, it will be very different from IT, chips, and computer software, which were confined to very specific geographies like Silicon Valley or China because the talent was confined there, or the raw materials. But bio innovation cannot be confined because it is biology. Everything on this planet is alive. Wherever there is waste, there can be bio fabrication and bio innovation. I think this will be the case for the next 50 years. We will see a lot of initiatives from all over the world occurring at once, at the same time, in different regional hubs. That’s the only way to save us from ourselves fast enough.

h: As brothers and co-founders, how do your individual strengths complement each other in steering Polybion toward success? How closely aligned are your personal visions for the company’s future?

Axel:  We are very different yet very similar at the same time. We complement each other. Alexis is a great artist, also a great musician. He’s also a good financier. Then I would say that I’m very curious, passionately curious. I love engineering, technology, and the language of the universe: mathematics, physics, biology, and chemistry.

Alexis:  I would say we are a very good match. We are in a consumer biotech business so we need to speak both the language of biology, which is our core technology, and also the language of any business, regardless of its scope, which is finance. I believe it’s been the keystone to Polybion’s success.

h: Could you open up about those moments when ethical values became the heartbeat of Polybion’s tech evolution? How does the company weave the threads of ethical sustainability practice into a distinctly human tapestry?

Axel: It’s all about ultra locality, as we call it. Everything should be local: talent, waste, energy, and all the raw materials should be confined to a 100-kilometre radius. We value circularity — everything should cycle within the region.

We believe in doing more with less, we’ve always been very efficient in everything we do. We built our machines ourselves and 3D-printed the equipment for the laboratory. I learnt how to do masonry and electrical installations. There is no need to waste extra energy or resources. It is important to do good and not just the perception of good, for all living things on the planet.

Alexis: As Axel said, it’s about doing more with less. I would like to get back to the pro-quality value because that brings us to why we’re using food waste as raw material.

h: Why does Polybion choose fruit waste as the foundation for biomaterials, and how does this choice contribute to creating the most sustainable material? Looking ahead, what does Polybion envision for the future of this innovative biomaterial derived from fruit waste?

Alexis: We started in the beginning with this concept of growing it from waste, it was our crazy idea. We had to develop a lot of technology behind this process. For now, it’s a new model, because now we hope that all of our peers do the same thing because that’s the best for the planet, to do business the locally available way.

Axel: The single most important thing is the model of circularity — waste has to start being seen as a valuable asset that can be transformed into materials or goods which can keep up with capitalism without sacrificing the planet.

Alexis: Sadly, capitalism is not going away any time soon, so the only thing we can do is propose a new model.

Axel: In the beginning, some investors used to ask: “What happens if you run out of waste?” There is enough waste in Mexico just from mango to supply 100% of the leather!

h: Please, describe your ideal collaborations with artists, scientists, and innovators. Are there specific projects or partnerships you are actively seeking or envisioning?

Axel: We love working with like-minded people, especially those who share the same values as us, for example, GANNI. We recently collaborated with them to create the world’s first blazer made with bacterial nanocellulose. We want to work with forward-thinkers and those who understand that Celium is not a leather copycat, it’s a brand-new material with its own personality. Move fast, make bold decisions in favour of sustainability, and shift the status quo!

Alexis: We want to work with people who push the human race forward, think outside the box. The round pegs in the square holes.

Axel:  It’s hard to find these kinds of personalities in big fashion brands. Because the bigger the brand, the bigger the company, the slower it is and the harder it is for people to make risky decisions. Right now, we are mainly focused on fashion but we are planning on growing. With bacterial cells, we can grow cell-based meat or even organs.

h: Could you provide examples of how Polybion anticipates influencing social perceptions and behaviours, particularly within the fashion industry? Are there specific trends or shifts you hope to inspire?

Alexis: The fashion industry is already going through a very important, fundamental shift set in action by the milestones all the brands want to hit by 2030. We need to be able to provide alternatives for these fashion brands so they can keep going through these shifts towards more sustainable practices.

Axel: We hope to influence the perception of alternative leather that people have, the perception of its durability. By doing so, we will surpass animal leather with engineering. Furthermore, Polybion creates new aesthetics. It’s bacterial growth, you can see it in the pattern: not plastic, not animal, but something unique in its own nature.

h: Individually, what are your aspirations for the future, both within and beyond the scope of Polybion? How do you see your roles evolving over time?

Alexis: For Polybion, it is becoming a beacon of how biology can be applied to create large-scale consumer goods that are sustainable and synchronized with nature, to become the most important biomaterial producer company.

Axel: We should become a trustworthy supplier of not only alternative leather but biomaterials in general. Outside of Polybion, we plan on solving other problems humanity is facing, not just the material ones.