Numat CEO & founder Mark Sebastian (second from right) with his other team members and bamboo experts
Climate tech venture builder Wavemaker Impact has launched Numat, a new venture focused on transforming bamboo processing with sustainable practices.
The VC firm has also infused US$525,000 into the Philippines-based firm.
Bamboo has an enormous potential for reducing carbon emissions—it absorbs around 4.6 tons of CO2 for every ton harvested, making it a powerful tool against climate change.
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Founded by CEO Mark Sebastian, Numat (short for ‘New Material’) aims to transform raw bamboo into sustainable products. It runs mobile bamboo processing units that convert bamboo poles at the harvest site into various pre-processed formats for processors worldwide.
Since its inception two months ago, Numat has delivered its first three orders of bamboo poles, totaling 1,260 Tinik and Asper varieties. By the close of 2024, it will also complete its first deliveries of 12,500 rough slats to a local off-taker and the first batch of fully treated and finished slates to an international off-taker.
The startup has the capacity to enable the replanting of 5,000 new bamboo seedlings weekly to advance to sustainable growth and development of bamboo plantations across the region.
The climate tech venture also runs a BambooPreneur Program, a partnership model for landowners that allows them to join Numat through a franchise-style system. This program provides landowners with everything they need to run their own bamboo processing operations using Numat’s BambPro System.
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Wavemaker Impact partners with experienced entrepreneurs to launch sustainability startups. The goal is to reduce 10 per cent of the global carbon budget by 2035. Each startup that it builds is a ‘100×100’ company, with the potential to decrease 100 million metric tons of CO2e and generate US$100 million in revenue per year.
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