Can you tell me about your company, Mars Materials, and how it came about?

Mars Materials (“Mars”) is based in Houston, Texas. We’re a Shell and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Fellows-backed company transforming carbon to purify dirty water. Our technology also produces carbon fibre for transportation and energy applications. My interest in what Mars is now doing goes back to high school where I became fascinated with technologies that can transform greenhouse gases, or compounds that contribute to planetary warming, into useful products. My undergraduate degree is in chemical engineering and throughout my four years of school, I completed several research projects that aligned with this interest. In my final year, I was awarded the Marshall Scholarship, which funded two one-year Master’s degrees in the UK.

Then, the pandemic hit and the uncertainty around my future studies and career set in. Amidst this, I realized an opportunity: everyone is at home and there will never be a better time to build my network. I joined online carbon removal and climate communities, such as Air Miners and Work on Climate, and began attending their events, such as panel discussions and brainstorming sessions. During one panel, Mars’ CEO and Co-Founder Aaron Fitzgerald, mentioned they were searching for a technology to commercialize with the potential to remove unprecedented amounts of CO2 directly from the atmosphere by 2030. Inspired, I immediately reached out, we began working together, and in two short months, we developed a technology evaluation framework rigorously assessing 18 different technologies based on their markets, potential impact and engineering difficulty. Ultimately, we selected process technology developed by researchers at NREL. The technology, nitrilation was attractive because it’s readily scalable, there’s a large and immediate market and it has the potential to reduce billions of tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere by 2050.

Five years on, we've successfully scaled up our impurity-advantaged process and validated our material. This breakthrough has overcome a decades-old hurdle, making us the only physically verifiable low-carbon product to be validated as a drop-in solution within the $11 billion polyacrylamide industry.

How has your entrepreneurial journey been so far, and what has been the biggest lesson you have learnt?

Like any entrepreneur will tell you, there are many ups and downs throughout the journey. At Imperial, we heard first-hand from successful entrepreneur guest speakers on how this can manifest. From the horror stories of team relationships falling apart to the long-hours and uncertainty that can quickly lead to burnout. What leads to this is a fundamental misalignment of vision and expectations. Our team, called “Planeteers” after the 90s show Captain Planet, thrives in these periods of uncertainty because of the shared vision that binds us all together: a world where harmful gases can transform into useful products. The biggest lesson is that investing in superb people and building a strong team culture is the single most important activity an entrepreneur can focus on. Without the people, the venture becomes just an idea on paper.

What are your aspirations for Mars Materials in the coming months and years?

With our product validation announcement, we're now working to capture the immediate $0.5B and growing demand we’ve unlocked for low-carbon feedstock. Today, the supply is severely constrained to provide just $3.5M of product to this market annually. We’re working with downstream manufacturers and end-product users in this market, such as flocculant, surfactant and polyacrylamide electrophoresis gel manufacturers, to complete piloting and product validation.

Additionally, we’re working to validate our carbon fiber specification as a drop-in. To support this effort, we were awarded a DoD SBIR to ensure our supply chain can be 100% sourced locally.  By 2029, we aim to launch our first full-scale commercial plant, which we anticipate generating revenues in excess of $500M.

What challenges have you faced in your entrepreneurial journey?

The biggest challenge most startups face, including Mars, is a chronic lack of resources. In the chemicals industry, it’s typical for a project to go from the laboratory scale to a pilot in 3-5 years while spending millions of dollars. Startups neither have the luxury of time nor financial resources. That’s where Mars’ superpower comes in: forging partnerships. We’ve worked with a diverse set of global organizations such as Shell, Breakthrough Energy and Black & Veatch to accelerate our scale-up by years and save millions on development costs through the services and expertise these groups provide.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to make a difference in combating climate change?

For me, action is the best antidote to anxiety when it comes to climate change.  I recommend joining active climate communities, refining your personal “why” and, as you build your network, conducting informational interviews to understand how they got started. Seek to get involved and contribute in any way that your bandwidth and skillset enable. As your network grows, the opportunities will start presenting themselves and you’ll have optionality on the pathway you want to choose to go forward. And as your career progresses, ultimately, you’ll realize that impact is directly proportional to the people around you. Ensure you pay it forward by actively listening, bringing people into the fold and supporting them as they work to achieve their vision.

How did you studies at Imperial help you in your entrepreneurial journey?

I started my coursework at Imperial six months after becoming a Co-Founder and this was no accident. To that point, I had five years of undergraduate and Master’s engineering education under my belt but was aware I had a lot to learn when it came to business and entrepreneurship. But while the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, venture capital and accounting have been incredibly useful in this journey, the quality of the people I met there is what really stood out. The diversity was unlike anything I had experienced too; my class of over 100 students represented 44 countries globally. Each individual I interacted with had a driving energy and curiosity, each willing to take the time to get to know me, learn about Mars and offer their perspective and encouragement. While all my coursemates are now at least a flight away, what’s special is that I know I can pick up the phone and count on my friends from Imperial at any time.