Living Entrepreneurship Blog / Babson Entrepreneurs

2017 SVP Startup Profile: Magnomer

Ravish Majithia of Magnomer

Founders:
Ravish Majithia, PhD, MBA’18: Founder and CXO;
Vishal Salian, PhD: Cofounder and CTO

What’s Magnomer?
Magnomer uses cradle-to-cradle principles to redesign plastic packaging for better recyclability. We redesign plastic packaging by adding visual functional magnetizable elements which complement brand designs and enable capture and recovery from waste streams.

Watch our video!:

What is the story behind your startup?
Segregating recycling before discarding has always annoyed me. It has always been more than just an inconvenience. I’ve always noticed that people are confused with what is recyclable. We all hear about how big the plastics pollution problem is. As someone who has worked with smart materials, the use of materials design to tackle the problem of plastic pollution seemed intriguing.

What’s been a big milestone/accomplishment you’ve made since Summer Venture Program started?
We have managed to get a major recycler on-board to test our prototypes.

What’s been a big obstacle/surprise that you faced?
We started with looking at redesigning the plastic bag by adding a functional magnetic element. Market research showed that plastic bags as a product are in a death spiral. While we could apply our design solution to plastic bags, it turned out to be the wrong place to start.

Any tips for aspiring entrepreneurs that you want to share?
You’ve got to be obsessed about what you bring to the market.

Meet Magnomer at the Summer Venture Showcase on Thursday July 27. Register now! >>