Finland-based Woamy, develops foam made from wood & agricultural waste – as a Styrofoam replacement – for protective packaging & building insultation, as well as laminated boards & shoe insoles. Woamy’s cellulose-based foam is a fully recyclable, lightweight & strong material (can also be made flame retardant & antimicrobial), which is manufactured mold-free & without using chemical additives, extreme pressure or heat. The key part of the invention is mimicking the directional strength of wood, which gives Woamy (foam) superior strength density (in comparison to other bio-based foams). To do so, Woamy has already build a prototype “foam manufacturing machine”, which it now seeks to scale & integrate to a new block/ boar assembly & post processing line. The startup also has a promising initial customer base, with a pilot customer in the packaging market & five additional POCs (gained with support from Business Finland & Kiuas Accelerator). Woamy was founded in 2022 by Susanna Partanen (CEO) & Mohamed Elamir (CTO), with friendly support from Luisa Jannuzzi (COO) & Egor Elfimov (Machine Operator), as well as researchers Leevi Viitanen & Juha Koivisto. The startup is a spinoff from Aalto University’s FoamWood project (& won Aalto University’s School of Science innovation of the year award in December 2022). Worth mentioning, Secto Design Oy (a Woamy investor & client) also invested in Paptic (another Finland-based bio-material startup, also in packaging, but focused on replacing paper or cotton). <Source: biofuelsdigest.com, ain.capital, einpresswire.com, articstartup.com>
