From car seats made of algae and leather made of fungi, synthetic biology looks to shake up the automobile industry.

In Florida, The Digest recognized the NEXT 50, “the 50 Next Companies to Disrupt the World”, bioeconomy companies that are on the journey to commercial scale with an emerging technology.

Checkerspot, a start-up materials company, is using biotechnology to harness the power of nature, fermenting algae to produce novel bio-based oils for use in materials in the outdoor recreational sector and an expanding number of other applications.

My eyes light up, as do his, highlighting his new vision of ski production. For the past year, Sterbenz has been the General Manager for Wintersports of Checkerspot—a biotech company based out of Berkeley, California. The task at hand: re-imagine the construction of skis using a new material derived from algae oil.

Could a Bay Area biotechnology company reinvent what’s in our ski gear

“The outdoor industry is ripe for technological advancements at this level,” Sterbenz continues. “This opportunity is something that could be widely disruptive. And necessary, I think, in the industry.”

“It’s all about the performance of the material. It’s one thing to put a material in, but you have to validate it using hard data then build the commercial story around that… Quite simply, you must be the better product.” – Charles Dimmler, CEO, Checkerspot

“Checkerspot is differentiated in its approach by focusing on more rapidly bringing to market high value materials with unique properties presently unavailable with traditional manufacturing processes. At Builders we partner with companies that are developing real solutions to modernize antiquated industries. Checkerspot’s approach of integrating biotechnology and materials science, then demonstrating the value of rapid prototyping and applications development, is exactly that,” said Jim Kim of Builders VC. He continued, “We fully expect that Checkerspot’s platform development and expansion into a wide range of industries will usher in a new way of thinking for how product designers apply and source performance materials.”

Jim Kim, general partner of Builders VC, who will join Checkerspot’s Board of Directors states… “We’re at a new age of industrial material production,” Kim said. By applying genetic tools in different arenas, he said, we’re able to make materials with unheard-of properties. “And we’re able to do it in a way that is not harsh, nasty, chemically driven, massively expensive…”

We (Breakout Ventures) have just invested in Checkerspot, a company using biological foundries to produce new materials sustainably…

“Fluorinated coatings are used in a lot of products – apparel, cookware, yoga pants – but they can often be toxic and lose performance over time as they shed into the environment. We are developing bio-based hydrophobic coatings that do not contain fluorine and are comparable or have better properties than the leading standards.” – Scott Franklin, CSO, Checkerspot