Welcome to this week’s Midweek Memo. In this issue, meet the Victoria entrepreneur scaling green chemistry to replace plastic, find out who's behind a seven-figure bootstrapped business, and celebrate the capital region's youngest entrepreneurs.

-Allison, @allisongacad

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Romain Metivet on building a green chemistry company in Victoria and the E.U.

How can you replace plastic by waterproofing paper and textiles? That's the problem Romain Metivet, founder and CEO of Victoria-based green chemistry venture Cellulotech, is trying to tackle. The company specializes in a chemical process that allows for cellulose-based materials, such as paper, to become waterproof.

Metivet initially viewed the materials industry through the lens of investing. Here, he first grew concerned with the nature of the industry, which largely focused on fossil-fuel-based plastics. "The lack of sustainability was a big issue," he said.

When Metivet came across technology that could waterproof cellulose-based materials, he saw an immense opportunity. He approached the inventors of the technology, visited existing industrial research centres, and saw the bottleneck that prevented scale.

"What I saw was that it wasn't a problem with the properties, [and] it wasn't a problem with the recyclability — it was a problem with the process," said Metivet. "We don't have a scalable process for this chemistry."

Cellulotech is currently working on pilot operations in the E.U. That's where most of the market demand for these products and existing research operations are, Metivet suggests. However, there's a large opportunity to tap into the local Victoria market.

"It seems natural to me that the company will develop here over time," said Metivet. "It's a big forestry and paper country, and the core vision behind Cellulotech is to give value to cellulose because it's the most abundant organic compound on earth."

📰 More Victoria innovation news

💙 The humble journey of a successful entrepreneur: Ania Wysocka, founder of Rootd, shares how she bootsrapped to over two million users and seven figures in annual recurring revenue.

✏️ Victoria's youngest entrepreneurs: Over 100 young entrepreneurs took part in Kidovate, a UVic program where teens create a business and take over the Bays Centre in downtown Victoria to sell their goods. Check out what they sold.

📈 Bringing together a remote team: Flytographer recently celebrated 10 years of operations with a retreat in Victoria, featuring some iconic landmarks.

🌳 Sustainability for stakeholders: Joanna Buczkowska-McCumber, principal of ideas for Impact Sustainability Agency, writes: how to tell if your business is failing to prioritize sustainability.

🌊 Funding for ocean solutions: Want to work on ocean sustainability and climate solutions for Victoria? Register for Ocean Startup Project's Ocean Communities Climate Challenge and win up to $7,500.

👩🏻‍💼 Victoria tech moves

Major personnel changes, including promotions, hires, and departures:

• Audette.io hired Dragon Prevost as MLOps Engineer.

🕴️Tech jobs of the week

Find your next career:

• Supervisor, Electronic Monitoring Sales and Service at Archipelago

• Graphic Designer at Audette.io

• Director of Accounting at The Butchart Gardens

Hiring in Victoria? Reply to this email and let us know!

📅 Upcoming events

April 19: Health Tech Nights #8 sponsored by VitaminLab and VIATEC

April 26: Salesforce User Group - Victoria re-launch event

May 4: Life Sciences British Columbia Showcase Series: Vancouver Island

May 11: Secure Your Apps: A Cybersecurity Event by OWASP Victoria

Have an upcoming event? Reply to let us know.