Space Velcro, A Sticky Business
Industrial velcro for robotics, drones and space
geCKo Materials makes velcro for space. Well earth too but “earth velcro” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
🎥 Watch Capella’s pitch on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app 🎧
You know how geckos can defy gravity?
Well, it turns out that gecko superpower has a ton of commercial use cases. Pick-and-place robots, drones, even space!
Traditionally you need a tape, glue, or suction to attach two objects. But geCKo Materials it’s a dry adhesive that works in any atmosphere: nitrogen, hydrogen, even in a vacuum and underwater. It’s on the International Space Station and used by Honda, Ford, Toyota, Intel, and GE here on earth.
This reusable and ridiculously strong material was developed at Stanford, but the real prize goes to Capella Kerst for inventing a way to manufacture it at scale.
What used to take 48-hours to produce, now takes 15-minutes.
It only takes six square inches of geCKo dry adhesive to tow a car. The applications for industrial velcro are endless. If it works, this is easily a multi-billion dollar business.
But here’s where things get sticky…
*spoilers ahead*
Capella’s last round was a $2 million dollar pre-seed at a valuation of $26M. It was 2021 and investors were throwing money around like it’s 1999.
Now Capella wants to raise $8M to scale up the business.
In this market, that’s a tough ask. Unless you’re a hot new AI startup, or flush with recurring revenue, it’s hard to raise a round of that size.
Will Capella get a VC to pony up? Or will she be forced to curb her enthusiasm and raise a smaller, more reasonable seed round.
Either way, The Pitch Fund will be paying close attention. Because the potential here is massive and I’m not letting go.
Our Season Finale Watch Party
We’re hosting a virtual watch party on December 11th at 7pm Eastern. RSVP to hear what happens next in Capella’s story.
