C&EN’s 10 Start-Ups to Watch for 2023 STAGING

The standard career path for promising young chemists has long involved earning a PhD, honing skills further in a postdoctoral research position, and ultimately landing a job at a university, a national laboratory, or a multinational chemical firm. But there is an alternative route. Rather than trying to fill their curriculum vitae with as many peer-reviewed publications as possible, chemists from all over the world are using their skills to start new companies. Often, they’re motivated by the chance to slow climate change, combat pollution, or feed hungry people. Several of the founders in this year’s 10 Start-Ups to Watch fit this description.

For Samantha Anderson, it was impossible to stand on the sidelines watching plastic pollution get worse. So while finishing a PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL), she cofounded DePoly, a company that’s developing a better way to recycle polyethylene terephthalate.

Similarly, after earning his PhD, Ryan Pearson went straight to Cyclotron Road, a fellowship program at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that helps scientists turn their research into companies. That’s where Cypris Materials got off the ground. The company is developing new colorants that it hopes will reduce carbon emissions and pollution from coloring clothes, cars, and other products.

Lately, C&EN’s pages have been filled with stories about start-ups founded by young chemists. A piece in July dug into Pivot Bio, a company trying to replace carbon-intensive synthetic fertilizers with microbes. The firm, now valued at more than $1 billion, was founded in 2011 by a pair of PhD candidates. A cover story in March featured Twelve, which hopes to make jet fuel out of carbon dioxide. That company took shape during Etosha Cave’s 2015 Activate Fellowship, a 2-year program that gives scientists funding and technical resources to turn themselves into founders.

Not all companies in this year’s selection have stories like this. Some of them were founded by serial entrepreneurs with several companies under their belts. Others were catalyzed by government support or started by veterans from big companies who abandoned the security of incumbent firms to try something audacious.

We considered hundreds of start-ups before settling on our finalists. They came from reader submissions, the pages of C&EN, and our reporters, who talked to chemists and entrepreneurs. Keep an eye on them. We’re excited to see what they do. Know about an interesting chemistry start-up? Nominate it for our 2024 feature at cenm.ag/startupnom.