How this startup went from producing a synthetic spider silk to partnering with fashion icons

bolt threads startup spider silk mylo sustainable fashion13

Bolt Threads is a biotech company based in Emeryville, California, that produces sustainable materials to supply the apparel industry.
Among these materials are a synthetic spider silk called Microsilk, developed without the help of spiders, and a newly-announced synthetic leather material called Mylo derived from the root structure of mushrooms.
The company's mission and materials have garnered attention from the fashion industry and landed it partnerships with brands such as Patagonia, Best Made and Stella McCartney.

The production of Bolt Threads' synthetic spider silk material has nothing to do with actual spiders.

The venture-backed biotech startup launched in 2009 and specializes in the vegan material, dubbed Microsilk, which has landed the Emeryville, California, company on the map in recent years.

CEO Dan Widmaier and a team of fellow scientists studied how spiders make silk to try and replicate that process using DNA samples similar to that of the arachnids. The silk fibers that spiders make are durable, soft, and can withstand a high degree of tension without breaking, similar to steel.

To Widmaier and his team, it was the perfect source of inspiration for a sustainable material derived from "four billion years of life on this planet," a focal point in the company's mission statement. With the textile industry being the second-largest polluter on the planet next to oil, there's always room for innovation of new materials.

Since Microsilk's debut, Bolt Threads has received $213 million in funding and has catapulted into a comfortable limelight in the apparel and tech industries. Business Insider visited the company's Emeryville location to catch up with Widmaier about Bolt Threads' latest developments, including a partnership with English fashion designer Stella McCartney and a new synthetic leather material produced from the roots of mushrooms.

In a 2016 interview with Business Insider, Widmaier said he wasn't much of a fashion guy. But as his company's sustainable materials have increasingly been embraced by the fashion industry, that's shifted a bit. "I'm not not a fashion guy, we'll put me in the middle," he said.

Source: Business Insider

Microsilk was responsible for putting Bolt Threads on the apparel industry's radar. Scientists have been trying to nail down the production of a synthetic spider silk for 30 years, but Widmaier and his team were the ones to accomplish it, though they knew the arachnids' cannibalistic nature would get in the way if they turned to them for help. “Spiders in a cage would eat each other, so that’s a problem.”

They keep this guy hanging around instead.

In lieu of enlisting the help of spiders, the company takes DNA samples that mimic spider silk proteins and transforms the DNA into yeast, which the company controls and can grow at a rapid rate. Each spot below is a single yeast cell that feasts on nutrients and doubles every four hours.

This is the "magic of using biology" to create a material, said Widmaier. The company can make metric tons of yeast that will result in the end product.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider