Changing the game in their respective fields, all with the support of the Boilermaker ecosystem. That’s what three companies who recently received pre-seed investment from Purdue Innovates Ventures’ Black and Gold Fund and the Minerva Yeung and Boon-Lock Yeo Philanthropic Initiative Fund for Startup Investment all have in common.

Pre-seed funding is a crucial first step for startups to turn their ideas into reality and the Ventures team is proud to support Purdue-connected companies at these early, critical stages.

“The Purdue Innovates Ventures team supports venture scale Purdue-connected companies with the resources of the Purdue ecosystem,” said Danielle Salters, principal at Purdue Innovates Ventures. “In this difficult environment for capital-raising, we are excited to announce our investment in pre-seed Purdue-connected companies with strong teams and demonstrable traction addressing large problems aligned with the strengths of the university.”

Explore companies using the recent investment for a giant leap in innovation, including agbioscience company and AgriNovus Indiana Producer-Led Innovation Challenge winner, FiberX.

FiberX

The world is searching for sustainable, non-petroleum-based feedstocks for the chemicals industry and an Indiana-based company leveraging Purdue IP has the answer. FiberX is using corn stover, the agricultural by-product from Indiana’s rich corn fields, to produce bioindustrial resins and biocomposite plastics. These resins and plastics have a variety of potential uses across many industries.

The Purdue connection: FiberX is proud of their deep affiliations at Purdue including professors Jim Caruthers and Enrico Martinez, PhD candidate Rajdeep Deka from the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering. Wade Lange, co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer, is a Purdue graduate (BS Pharmacy ‘79 and MSIA 1981) and former Chief Entrepreneurial Officer at PRF.

“This investment allowed FiberX to close its initial $1.0 million in funding. These funds allow FiberX to complete its plans to scale corn stover fiber production from our automated pilot plant to industrial scale production at an 800x improvement. We appreciate the persistent support of Dipak Narula of the Office of Technology Commercialization, Purdue Research Foundation, and numerous other departments across Purdue considering the potential uses of FiberX processed corn stover fiber.” — Dave Skibinski, CEO of FiberX.

You should know: FiberX is a Gilded Age opportunity as they are starting a new industry, founded in the state of Indiana. They are upcycling the value of corn stover from the state’s corn farms into a new feedstock for chemical products and other industries.