How Can a Business Accelerator Help Recycling & Recycled-Content Manufacturing?

Let’s start with a definition. A business incubator nurtures and develops new, unproven technologies and ideas; whereas a business accelerator focuses on existing technologies or businesses and accelerates growth.

That was the foundation set by Dan Radomski, director of the Lawrence Technological University Centrepolis Accelerator, during the NextCycle Michigan webinar Accelerating Recycling and Recycled-Content Manufacturing in Michigan.

Centrepolis Accelerator is a business accelerator focused on Southeast Michigan’s advanced manufacturing, hardware entrepreneurs, and small manufacturers.

Two organizations that have worked with Centrepolis Accelerator shared their experiences and the benefits of working with a business accelerator.

Kris Hunter, a managing partner with Global Battery Solutions focusing on repair, remanufacturing, repurpose, and recycling batteries, shared her experience working with accelerators and supporting organizations including Michigan Status University, Small Business Development Corp, Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), and Centrepolis Accelerator. These organizations helped Global Battery Solutions with support and funding to conduct analysis, develop strategic plans, and connect with partners and potential investors. 

“These types of support mechanisms have helped us to continue to be able to work and address our passion – wouldn’t be possible without it,” said Hunter.

Pivot Materials, a manufacturer of composite plastics using natural fiber bamboo or rice hull fiber, also worked with Centrepolis Accelerator and other incubators/accelerators.

Raju Patil, engineering manager at Pivot Materials, expressed gratitude to the accelerators they worked with in terms of the support received including access to experts, developing operations, identifying partners, and receiving grant money. Patil credited the accelerators with enabling Pivot to remain self-funded and operational during this difficult pandemic time.

The webinar featured a new initiative introduced by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE): NextCycle Michigan. NextCycle Michigan, facilitated by RRS with partners Centrepolis Accelerator and the Michigan Recycling Coalition, is a multi-track idea incubator that provides technical support and subject matter expert mentoring to move recycling and recycled-content manufacturing ideas toward implementation in Michigan.

“These innovation challenges are really designed only for the recycling space,” said Elisa Seltzer, senior consultant with RRS. “We are bringing incubators and accelerators and all those cool support tools to the recycling space and end market development.”

Seltzer stressed the collaborative nature of NextCycle Michigan, in resources and support, within the potential teams made up of individual organizations or cross-sector collaborations, and in bringing organizations together to form partnerships.

Additionally, NextCycle Michigan uses the Renew Partnership Portal as a pathway for private organizations, trade associations, public sector agencies, brands, and manufacturers to amplify investment in the program. The portal connects resources to the innovation challenges where mission and goals align and/or support individual shovel-ready projects.

NextCycle Michigan expands on the success of the Colorado NextCycle program that ran for two cycles from 2017 to 2020. Similar to NextCycle Michigan, the Colorado program used a business accelerator model to support and accelerate recycling-related businesses.

“Colorado NextCycle was absolutely instrumental for us to accelerate our business model,” said Monique DiGiorgio, managing member of Table to Farm Compost.

DiGiorgio explained that the Colorado NextCycle program, an initiative of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and facilitated by RRS, guided them through the process of determining their business model, which ended up different then original presented. The expert support and connections made enabled them to identify a closed-loop system for compost, connect with a composter to build their unique, high-quality recipe with locally sourced materials, and prepared them to apply and receive two grants from the CDPHE.

“When I look back, I’m glad I had those six months of all that support, time, and energy to think through this,” said DiGiorgio. “Most entrepreneurs tend to rush to a decision – we didn’t rush because we took the time to really go through the accelerator course.”

Vartega also participated in Colorado NextCycle. Vartega develops technology for reclaimed and recycled carbon fiber as a low-cost alternative to virgin materials in the automotive and industrial sectors.

“We weren’t recycling folks - that wasn’t our background. NextCycle helped connect us to the infrastructure, the recycling infrastructure that exists here in Colorado and now that’s helping in Michigan as well,” said Andrew Maxey, co-founder of Vartega. “There is so much about the logistics and everything else that we just didn’t have that perspective. Definitely saved us a lot of false starts and going down paths where logistics just weren’t going to make sense.”

Since going through the Colorado NextCycle program, Vartega has received grant funds from the CDPHE for investments to incorporate recycled carbon fiber with thermoplastics. They are also pursuing similar opportunities in Michigan.

SANA Packaging is trying to implement circularity in cannabis packaging. They are not a manufacturer or material compounder but are an end demand-pull for these types of materials and manufacturing processes. They use reclaimed ocean-plastics and hemp bio-composite in developing cannabis packaging.

Ron Basak-Smith, CEO of SANA Packaging, shared his experience going through this year’s Colorado NextCycle program.

“We were already an up and running business and had a proven business model when we started,” said Basak-Smith.

Additionally, Basak-Smith credited the Colorado NextCycle program with enabling access to a team with experience in dealing with some of the issues the SANA team had not dealt with before.

When it comes to NextCycle Michigan, Radomski said the program is “trying to find technologies and ideas that already have some level of proven capability and really accelerate those ideas by connecting them to strategic partners and funding to support that scaling.”

Those interested in NextCycle Michigan – participating as a team, funder, ambassador, review committee, etc. – from all parts of the value chain, should submit an interest form via the NextCycle Michigan website.

You can watch the recorded webinar online: Accelerating Recycling and Recycled-Content Manufacturing in Michigan.