The ‘valley of death’ for climate lies between early-stage funding and scaling up

Jonathan Strimling faced a dilemma. His company had spent nine years working on chemical processes that could turn old cardboard boxes into high-quality building insulation. The good news was the team had finally cracked it: CleanFiber’s technology pumped out insulation — really good insulation. It had fewer contaminants and produced less dust than other cellulose insulation made from old newspapers. Insulation installers loved the stuff. Now CleanFiber had to make more of it. A lot more. Many founders and CEOs might be envious of the problem. But the transition from science project to commercial outfit is one of the hardest to pull off. “It’s hard to launch your first-of-breed plant,” Strimling, the company’s CEO, told TechCrunch. “It did cost us more than we expected. It took us longer than we expected. And that’s fairly typical.” Read more >>