Gecko Materials wants to sell you the next Velcro
It looks fake, or at least like a good illusion: There's Gecko Materials founder Capella Kerst dangling a full wine bottle from her pinky finger
It looks fake, or at least like a good illusion: There’s Gecko Materials founder Capella Kerst dangling a full wine bottle from her pinky finger, the only thing keeping it from smashing to pieces being the super-strong dry-adhesive her startup has brought to market.
But it’s no trick. It’s the result of years of academic research that Kerst built on by inventing a method to mass-manufacture the adhesive. Inspired by the way real-life gecko feet grip surfaces, you could think of it like a new Velcro — except it only needs one side, leaves no residue, and can detach as quickly as it attaches. It can do this at least 120,000 times and, as Kerst noted in a recent interview with TechCrunch, can stay attached for seconds, minutes, or even years.
Kerst has spent the last few years giving this magic trick-style demo any and everywhere: At VC happy hours, during pitch meetings, and on TikTok and Instagram Reels. And it works. Not just mechanically, but as a method of quickly captivating investors and customers. Gecko raised a $2 million seed round in 2021 in less than 36 hours, and boasts Ford, Pacific Gas & Electric, and even NASA as early customers.
Yes, before Kerst makes her pitch on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, Gecko Materials’ adhesive has already been to space.
The adhesive is incredibly strong. One square-inch tile of it can hold 15 pounds, vertically, while six of them is enough to pull a car. It works by leveraging van der Waals forces, which involves interactions at the intermolecular level.
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