PhD process engineer Dr Anne Lamp and MBA graduate Johanna Baare co-founded the startup traceless in September 2020. Their company is based at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) and is supported by beyourpilot and Startup Dock. The founders have made it their mission to solve global plastic pollution by developing materials from nature for nature.
The company of the two founders has now been listed at the top of the “Top 50 Start-ups in 2021”. More than 170 start-up competitions were analysed for this purpose. traceless materials is thus the first start-up founded solely by women to win first place in Germany’s “Top 50 Start-ups in 2021”: “It is the first time that a start-up with an all-female founding team has topped the ranking! This is something to be proud of, but we hope that in the near future this will no longer be worth mentioning, as it will then only be normal to be a female-founded company,” Anne announced via LinkedIn. “Either way, we love recognitions like this – they give us even more energy to keep working on everything we stand for at traceless, and that’s exactly what we’ll be doing in the coming weeks,” she continued.
Versatile support for the founders
The company is actively supported by Startup Dock as well as beyourpilot: “I was unsure at the beginning and didn’t know my options regarding a start-up. Startup Dock advised me and gave me tips. Sebastian Bartosch was my main contact person, but Konstantin Kollar and Dr. Andrea Otto also advised me regarding the start-up. To this day, they are my sparring partners when it comes to my pitch deck. For example, we also talk about our strategy, how we can realise things. These are all business components that you think less about as a researcher,” Anne told our Startup Story. “In addition, Hamburg Innovation helped me a lot when I applied with my biofilm project a year ago to “Calls for Transfer” (C4T), a funding programme for technology transfer and innovation at universities. And when I was accepted towards the end of the year – that was great! Because if you’re sitting alone at university with an idea, you don’t have any money to begin with. I applied again successfully with bioplast (now traceless plast) and got the funding. C4T is simply unique in terms of speed: it takes less than two months from application to acceptance – you won’t find that anywhere else,” said Anne, expressing her satisfaction in the Startup Story interview.
The business idea: a dimensionally stable material from agricultural industry residues
The technology developed by Dr Anne Lamp makes it possible to produce a new material from agricultural industry by-products, from which a film, a dimensionally stable material and coatings can be obtained. “Our innovative, patent-pending technology makes it possible for the first time to use agricultural industry by-products to produce materials that can be composted at home,” she explains. These are 100 per cent bio-based, do not compete with food production, do not require plasticisers or other additives that are harmful to the environment or health, and are compostable at home. The new material has mechanical, barrier and storage-stability properties comparable to those of conventional plastic films and rigid plastics. Moreover, it does not fall under the EU Plastics Directive, is already competitive in terms of quality – and will even be able to compete with conventional plastic in terms of price on an industrial production scale.
Ambitious goals for 2030
“In the long term, our goal is to replace plastic wherever it can end up in the environment and it is important that the material degrades. These are mainly packaging applications in both the food and non-food sectors, but also disposable products as well as coating and adhesive solutions,” Johanna explained the envisaged future in the Top 50 interview. The start-up aims to grow as fast as possible: “By the end of 2030, we want to have brought one million tonnes of our material to market and created 500 jobs,” said the MBA graduate confidently.
Sources and further links:
The ranking of the Top 50 Startups 2021
Interview of traceless in the context of their top ranking
More information on the founding story via Startup Stories by beyourpilot
