Georgia grows more pecans than any state in the country, and every one of them comes with a shell that farmers and shellers burn or throw away. Raha Saremi, a materials scientist with a Ph.D. in polymer, fiber and textile sciences and a faculty member in the University of Georgia’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences, saw a feedstock. Ecoatex uses green chemistry to turn that agricultural waste into bio-based leather, fibers and packaging materials that perform like the petroleum-based versions, with no toxic chemicals, no microplastics, and an end of life that returns safely to the soil. The browns come from the nuts themselves; no pigment is added.
Ecoatex pitched at Startup Runway’s 26th showcase in July 2024. Raha was a scientist first and a founder second, and the program was built for exactly that profile: pitch rehearsal with coaches, a mock board meeting where she worked a commercialization problem with a table of mentors rather than a fundraising one, and then a live pitch and investor Q&A in front of an audience. Startup Runway later sat down with her for a long-form conversation on building a sustainable-materials company from a university lab, which you can watch below.
“I am incredibly grateful for your advice on this. I wouldn’t have thought to push back without your encouragement.”
Dr. Raha Saremi, to Startup Runway’s founder, January 2025, after renegotiating her university license terms
The mentoring did not end when the showcase did. When it came time to license her own inventions out of the university, Raha took Startup Runway’s advice and pushed back on the first set of terms she was offered, something she says she would not have thought to do on her own. Since then the company has validated its core process through USDA NIFA, an EPA SBIR Phase I award and NSF I-Corps, drawing more than $500,000 in non-dilutive funding, and has filed patents in the United States and internationally, with one granted and three pending. Raha runs a pilot-scale R&D facility with custom fractionation, casting and coating systems, and has shipped pilot samples to packaging and fiber manufacturers. Ecoatex was selected for the 2026 Southeast Venture Showcase and has opened its first institutional round, a $1 million pre-seed.
Raha has now left the faculty to lead Ecoatex full-time, with Sean Cook, an introduction from Startup Runway’s founder, on her advisory board. In 2026 she made the strategic call every materials founder eventually faces: rather than make finished goods, Ecoatex will supply inputs and formulations to the manufacturers who already make the world’s packaging and fabric. Her five-year goal is unglamorous and enormous: sell raw material by the ton, and let them replace plastic without changing a machine.
