Repla participated in COMEUP 2022 held at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in Seoul for three days from November 9th (Wed) to 11th (Fri) and introduced plastic decomposition and purity improvement technology using microorganisms.
Repla is a start-up that researches·develops microorganisms that can decompose plastics from the intestines of insects, and improving the purity of plastics by decomposing other plastic components except for the desired plastics through microorganisms. According to Repla, the improvement in plastic purity leads to an increase in product value, which can generate up to 3.7 billion KRW in additional revenue per year from one production line.
They are conducting research and development with the goal of providing solutions to plastic recycling plants. They are currently running the project with the series A investment stage, and development is being carried out in the laboratory level. Next year, they are planning to run pilot operation of up to 100L units. For final introduction, processing capacity in tons is required.
An official from Repla said, “We are focusing on optimizing the resolution. We are trying various methods such as transformation of microorganisms themselves, optimizing environment, and pre-processing.”
Repla is also developing·distributing equipment that can be used in plastic recycling plants. Plastic factories usually separate only one material from recycled plastic, wash it, and process it back into raw materials. For this process, a machine that can check the percentage of foreign matter in plastic before recycling or in finished plastic produced is useful. Repla’s Plastic Reader is a device that measures the purity of the final batch(result) by reconfirming the material of the selected flakes.
Having its 4th iteration this year, ‘COMEUP 2022’ was hosted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Young Lee) and organized by the Korea Startup Forum (Chairman Jae-wook Park). Startups, investors, and people related to startups from over 15 countries attended, and this year in particular was the start of COMEUP’s rebranding from the previous government-private collaboration to the private-led event that it is now, as it aims to become a global Top 5 startup event. With the slogan of ‘WE MOVE THE WORLD’, the event was conducted both on and offline, and had various programs like Academic Conferences (Conference), Open Innovation Strategy of Global Companies (Open Innovation), COMEUP Stars Company Introduction (IR) and Booth Exhibitions, and Business Matching (Biz Matching).
