Microciclo Biotecnologia

Changing mindset from academic to business

Microciclo started as a spin-off from the laboratory of molecular biology and genomics at Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in the northeast of Brazil. The research team has been studying bacteria communities in oil fields for 15 years. In 2019, with desire to put their research into action, the future Microciclo team decided to elaborate a product based on their research and go to market, and so they founded Microciclo. They started taking part in programs that connected them with companies having problems that Microciclo's solution could potentially solve. The start-up team was formed by 5 researchers, all women and all biologists with master’s degree and PhD. As they were from the same technical field, they quickly realized the importance of shifting their mindset from academic to business and began improving their business skills by dividing up roles such as management, finance, product development, and marketing. Despite being located outside of Brazil's industrial hubs, the Microciclo team was willing to travel long distances to test their product in a relevant environment in order to advance product development and "beat the valley of dead" on the way to a successful business.

Microbes decontaminating oily wastewater

“Microciclo combines microbes and recycling. Microbes are found everywhere and are responsible for the recycling of all elements on the planet. With the right microbes, it is possible to recycle toxic compounds and clean them up. That is the essence of Microciclo,“

Carolina Minnicelli (CEO of Microciclo) explains. Microciclo wants to change the way industrial oily wastewater is treated. Current treatments are not eco-friendly and require higher costs as well, as the companies pay a lot of money to transfer this waste to a treatment facility. According to Carolina, this waste is usually sun dried, which takes long time and the leftover is buried in landfills. Microciclo’s solution is a mix of specific bacteria that clean up the oil and allows water reuse. The main idea is that the powder or liquid version of the product is applied to the oily wastewater in a storage tank. Usually companies already store oily wastewater in these tanks. After nearly 30 days, the bacteria had fed on the hydrocarbons in the oil, producing carbon dioxide and water, decontaminating the water and allowing it to be reused.

“A drop of oily wastewater can contaminate next 20 liters of water. This is a huge problem and the world needs a better solution to deal with it,”

Carolina explains. Now Microciclo is analyzing the value proposition of their solution to show the industry how much they save by reusing the water, by avoiding environmental penalties, or even how much they can profit from green credits. the genomic and biochemical characterization of bacteria isolated by Microciclo over the last 15 years accelerates the development of new mixtures that can be tested, as well as the development of new products. The startup has already piqued the interest of metallurgical industries.

Next steps at Microciclo

Microciclo is currently focused on scaling up their production and testing of their product in order to register the product with regulatory agencies, obtain approval for its use, and manufacture and commercialize it in various locations. Microciclo collaborates with other start-ups too, most of them are from the southeast of Brazil. Microciclo is the first biotech start-up of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte and they hope that their action encourages other academic groups from the region, so they could build up a start-up network. Microciclo Biotecnologia, who was one of the Open Labs Brazil Winners and onboarded ISC3 Global Start-up Service in August 2021, contributes with their innovation to SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), SDG 9 (industry innovation), SDG 11 (sustainable cities), SDG 14 (life under water), and SDG 15 (life on land).