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Anthony Rose
Hello, I’m Anthony, founder at SeedLegals, and every day I talk to amazing founders and I love helping them share their story. So today, I’m talking to Jack from Protonera. I met Jack at a startup event in London, and he was telling me about—well, Jack, tell me, what’s the problem you solve?Jack Guo
Absolutely. Well, people burn and dump plastics, and I was just too tired of all the plastic waste that is surrounding us.Anthony Rose
And hence, you have developed this technology that efficiently turns plastics into hydrogen. So you’ve got, from our conversation, this amazing process where enzymes eat plastic and turn it into hydrogen, which sounds like an amazing solution to an enormous problem. And this is a unique solution that you’ve developed. Tell us a bit about your background.Jack Guo
Yes, absolutely. We discovered a set of catalysts we can use to make the process happen during my research at the University of Cambridge. And after looking at the economics, it makes sense for us to scale up and commercialize our technology. So apart from plastics in the ocean and plastics being burned, it turns out that there are huge amounts of plastics that are actually burned.Anthony Rose
And there’s a huge dollar value on that apart from the environmental damage. So tell us a bit about that and what’s that sort of market opportunity?Jack Guo
Absolutely. There’s over $180 billion worth of plastic being burnt by waste management facilities every year around the world. And it’s such a vast number, only because it costs so much for them to recycle it properly. Hence, we want to use our process to turn the plastic into a more valuable solution.Anthony Rose
In order for us to turn plastic into hydrogen and capture that untapped market value. And of course, if you’re creating hydrogen, then you can use that for powering hydrogen cars, generators, and all sorts of other things. That’s amazing. Tell me, this sounds like a very capital-intensive business. So tell me the growth plan. There’s a starting point, and then you scale. Tell us a bit more about that.Jack Guo
Absolutely. Right now, we are supported by the university, and we’re trying to scale to one kilogram of plastic per day in processing capacity. The next step for us is in three years’ time—we aim to go for production scale. Because we use catalysts, it’s relatively easy for us to scale up. So that’s the point when we expect to break even financially with our production plan.Anthony Rose
Okay. And I’m assuming the market size is enormous. I’m assuming there are going to be government subsidies and things like that.Jack Guo
Yes, and of course, it’s great for the planet and essential for the planet as well.Anthony Rose
So you’re fundraising right now as well?Jack Guo
Yes, we’re opening up our round for our first institutional investment, and we plan to fuel that also with grants as well.Anthony Rose
All right. Now, what got you out of bed one morning thinking, “I want to create an enzyme that eats plastic”?Jack Guo
I think it has been my long-term passion, really. I did my PhD surrounding it, and yeah, I guess I’m just a clean freak and I cannot handle all the waste plastic surrounding us.Anthony Rose
All right, that sounds amazing. So anyone who’s interested in helping or getting involved, where do they find you? How do they contact you?Jack Guo
We have a website, protonera.com, and also my LinkedIn—Jack Guo, G U O. People can feel free to contact me there.Anthony Rose
All right, so protonera.com is the place to go to find out more. Amazing. I’m delighted we spoke, Jack. Thank you.Jack Guo
Lovely. Thank you, Anthony.
