Better materials for people and the planet, made with fungi.
Flame retardants weaken engineered wood, so mills add extra resin to make up for it. HyprChar is a bio-based flame retardant additive designed to work alongside existing resins, so mills don’t have to double up.
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THE PROBLEM
One board. A stack of petrochemicals.
Every engineered wood board needs a resin to hold it together, plus another chemical for every job it must do: repel water, resist moisture, act as a flame retardant, last longer. Each one adds cost, complexity and compromise.
Why we’re starting with flame retardants
We’re solving a cost problem, not a sustainability one.
Start with the additive. HyprChar drops into existing lines alongside existing resin. No new equipment.
Then replace the stack. The same fungal chemistry is designed to take on the binder, water repellent and biocide, one product at a time.
Flame screening, 60-second burn. Left: untreated control. Right: HyprChar-treated.
The control’s top layer burns away and flakes off. In screening, ours formed a char layer and stayed put. In indicative lab tests following the EN 13501 approach, the treated piece kept significantly more structural integrity after a 60-second burn than the control. Screening, not certification.
03 · THE VISION
Engineered wood is the beginning.
One fungal chemistry for the fibre-based materials of everyday life.
FAMILIAR CHEMISTRY, BIOLOGICAL ORIGIN
One binder.
Multifunctional.
A single fungal formulation, designed to act as a flame retardant and repel water in the same production line. In resin, the chemist sets the ratio in a reactor. Here, Hyphera sets it in the fungus.
TODAY
Petrochemical resin
Hydrophobicity treatment
Flame retardant
Bioactive surface finish
4 PRODUCTS · 4 COST LINES · 4 COMPLIANCE PATHS
One formulation
Designed to bind the fibre and carry every function in one application.
1 PRODUCT · 1 COST LINE · 1 COMPLIANCE PATH
01
Adhesive
Binds the fibre
02
Moisture resistance
Resists water
03
Flame retardant
Designed to slow flame spread
04
Bioactivity
Antibacterial and antioxidant
Designed for: 0% formaldehyde · 100% bio-based
Samples from the lab: panels, acoustic tiles, moulded forms, paper, coated board and more.
Latest from Hyphera
2026-10-22
First from Australasia at biotope by VIB
Hyphera has been selected for biotope by VIB basecamp in Ghent, Belgium, the first company from Australasia to attend one of Europe’s top biotech incubators.
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Waiheke: team and advisors meet in person
The whole Hyphera team and advisory board got together in person for the first time on Waiheke: a full day on go-to-market and IP strategy, plus a look at recent milestones.
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Win on cost, performance and scale.
With the green premium fading, biotech has to win on cost, performance and scale. Unit economics first. That’s the standard we’re building Hyphera to.
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2026-10-04
Rebuilding the physical world.
Jess speaks at Outset Ventures | Frontier during Auckland Startup Week on 15 October. The physical world runs on chemistry settled decades ago, and shifting any of it means working with the industries already built around it.
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2026-09-28
Seven years with the NZ Product Accelerator.
There is an enormous amount of knowledge, expertise and physical infrastructure in this country available to help businesses build and scale physical products. NZPA is the guide.
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2026-09-21
Change the input, not the system.
Jess won the Creative HQ Pitch Competition at NZ Tech Expo. We are looking to change the chemistry of how engineered wood products are made, not the manufacturing infrastructure that makes them.
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2026-09-21
From Auckland to New York Climate Week.
A New Zealand company developing fungal chemistry into a formaldehyde-free replacement for the resins and additives used in engineered wood, meeting manufacturers and materials people in New York and San Francisco.
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2026-09-11
Conviction, evidence, storytelling, resilience.
Jess and Gautam spent a session with Cohort 3 at Whitecliffe College on what it takes to communicate an idea as a founder. Entrepreneurship is not an obvious path, and most people never hear from anyone who has walked one.
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2026-09-09
Designed with the people who run the lines.
The people running panel lines know things about their process that cannot be learned from the outside. Designing around that early beats proving something in isolation and asking an industry to bend to it.
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THE TEAM
Built by people who have done this before.
Second-time founders spanning fungal biotechnology, product design and commercialisation, working alongside decades of experience from inside the polymer and forest-products industries. Based at Outset Ventures in Parnell, Auckland.
Mills
Designed to cut the extra resin you add to make up for flame retardants.
Resin and chemical makers
Add a bio-based flame retardant to your range.
Investors
We’re raising our pre-seed now.
Let’s talk. We’re looking for mills, resin and chemical makers and investors to work with.
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