CU startup Mallinda to enter Berkeley national lab’s Cyclotron Road incubator

Mallinda LLC, a University of Colorado spinoff, this week was one of six startups chosen to participate in the Cyclotron Road incubator run by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.

The selection means an early exit from the Fort Collins-based Innosphere incubator’s two-year program, but that was partially by design. In fact, it was Innosphere officials who turned Mallinda’s founders on to the idea of applying to Cyclotron Road in the first place.

Mallinda is an advanced materials company that has developed a novel plastic and advanced composite technology that the founders envision being used in the manufacturing of everything from moldable athletic gear and batteries to automobiles and wind turbines. Cyclotron Road, launched last year, is a program geared toward helping cleantech companies advance their technologies and raise funding.

SPONSORED CONTENT

How Platte River Power Authority is accelerating its energy transition

Platte River Power Authority, the community-owned wholesale electricity provider for Northern Colorado, has a history of bold initiatives.

“A program like Cyclotron Road is a very unique opportunity, and we want to make sure they can stay focused on that,” Rob Writz, director of energy and advanced materials at Innosphere, said Wednesday. “We’re in the business of helping our companies get resources and move them along. We don’t try to keep them forever.”

Writz said he’s known the founders of Cyclotron Road for several years, knew of the “unparalleled resources” the program could provide, and felt Mallinda was a good fit. Only six of the 100 companies that applied were accepted to this year’s cohort.

Mallinda chief executive Chris Kaffer said the acceptance to Cyclotron already has provided a significant level of technical validation for the company as it works on raising a $1 million funding round from investors.

“People know about Cyclotron,” Kaffer said. “They know the level of the companies that are coming in there.”

Mallinda last summer opened a lab at the Fitzsimons Innovation Campus in Aurora. The company will maintain its presence there. But co-founder Phil Taynton will move to California full-time for the two-year Cyclotron program, and Kaffer, who lives in Lafayette, will likely be spending three or four days per week in California.

“We don’t want to leave Colorado,” Kaffer said. “Colorado’s done so many good things for us.”

Kaffer said Cyclotron, though, will provide roughly $500,000 in cash and in-kind support over the next two years. That includes salaries and health care for Kaffer and Taynton, use of the facilities at the national lab and help with industry and funding connections.

Mallinda is hoping to build a pilot-scale manufacturing operation for athletic equipment, with the goal of its first products going to market in 12 to 18 months.

“There are things we can do in a day that would have taken us weeks and thousands of dollars here just because we can’t get on the right machine at the right time or whatever it might be,” Kaffer said.

Innosphere is a local nonprofit that charges startups a fee and in turn helps with access to test facilities, finding product market fit and sales channels, and accessing capital. Writz said it’s not uncommon for a startup to graduate the program early when a predefined funding, revenue or product development goal is met. And Mallinda, he said, has the chance to be a game-changer in manufacturing for a variety of industries.

“They have the potential to change the entire cost structure of composite materials,” Writz said. “It really is a new type of plastic, so it opens up a lot of doors.”