Team details

Team members

Hanh Do Hanh founded BUYO with the aspiration to find a radical solution to the plastic crisis. Prior to BUYO, she served as Director at Esquel Group - one of the global leading apparel and textile manufacturers, leading various business functions (business development, strategy, finance, human resources, government affairs, and retail). Prior to joining Esquel, Hanh was the Country Representative of the Asia Competitiveness Institute (National University of Singapore) in Vietnam where she worked in affiliation with the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness (Harvard Business School) on enhancing competitiveness in the region. In her earlier career, Hanh was the Chief Representative of Viet Capital Asset Management and the Economic Growth Specialist at USAID Vietnam. Hanh has also been advising corporates and organizations on strategy, innovation, and business restructuring, and published on the subjects of national and corporate strategy, competitiveness, innovation, and industrial policy.
Hoa Trinh Concurrently, Hoa serves as a consultant for the International Financial Corporation (IFC)/World Bank Group, supporting the banks and private sector on climate finance and green economy. She is active also in the fields of Environmental Quality Management and Plastics Pollution Reduction, being a technical consultant for various donor-funded projects in Vietnam. She used to serve as the Environmental and Climate Change Technical Specialist to Global Affairs Canada and as the Program Manager/Policy Analyst for the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a leading US-based Environmental Organization, seeding the very first climate change mitigation project on rice paddy in the Mekong Delta. She holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, USA, and a Master's in Applied Environmental Geosciences from the University of Tuebingen, Germany. She received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam.
Chi Le Chi received her Bachelor's degree in Global Environmental Studies at Clark University in the United States. She has had over 5 years of experience with general administration for NGOs and start-ups in Vietnam.
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Project details

Describe your product and your key goals

<aside> <img src="/icons/apple_blue.svg" alt="/icons/apple_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Describe your product Product description here

BUYO is an award-winning deep tech company that provides a nature-based and biodegradable biomaterial to replace plastics. We use our advanced proprietary technology to convert bio-waste and plant-based materials into bioplastics. Our products are fully degradable in the natural environment and safe for human health, offer desirable properties, and generate minimal carbon footprints. We utilize discarded bio-waste that is abundantly available in Vietnam, hence creating value-added for the circular economy. Our products are tailored for different end-use applications (consumer goods, industrial products, medical and cosmetic applications) and serve B2B customers in the global market, including the world’s largest brands and corporates. We have won numerous prestigious awards globally for our technologies and solutions.

BUYO product applications:

Consumer products: cutlery, plates, cups, straws, coasters, food containers, beverage containers, bags and wrapping film, bottles, jars, boxes, etc.
Industrial products: keg caps, pallets, containers, etc.
Medical, cosmetic, textile applications </aside>

<aside> <img src="/icons/bullseye_green.svg" alt="/icons/bullseye_green.svg" width="40px" /> What you want to achieve by March 2025

Commercialize a newly developed bio-based, circular product
Develop and validate an innovative, circular, and bio-based solution </aside>

Describe what you need the most

<aside> <img src="/icons/bell-notification_pink.svg" alt="/icons/bell-notification_pink.svg" width="40px" /> Describe the kinds of help you need the most (funding, expertise, technology, access, etc).

Funding
- We are currently raising our Seed round to raise funds for scaling up. We are operating a pilot factory in Ho Chi Minh City with a capacity of 10 tons per month. We are targeting to scale up by 10 times by the end of 2025.
Access:
- Looking for access to networks and partners that can help elevate our presence </aside>

Describe your customers and the problem you are solving

<aside> <img src="/icons/brain_blue.svg" alt="/icons/brain_blue.svg" width="40px" /> Describe your target customers

BUYO aims for high-quality, high-demanding, and safety-related market segments like food contact packaging, and medical and cosmetic applications to fully utilize the superior advantages of the material concerning safety and eco-friendliness. </aside>

<aside> <img src="/icons/emoji-disappointed_pink.svg" alt="/icons/emoji-disappointed_pink.svg" width="40px" /> What pain points are you trying to solve?

Solving the root of the plastic crisis: Plastic bags are used for an average of 12 minutes but it takes 500 years or more to be degraded in a landfill. Comparable property performance to regular plastics, better performance than starch-based, paper, wood pulp, and sugarcane products in tensile strength, durability, heat resistance, water resistance, etc. No microplastics, so safe for health!
Tackling climate change: Fully biodegradable in the natural environment & Saving carbon footprint
Upcycling waste: Made from bio-waste and other nature-based materials, not containing petroleum-based and starch-based materials; Not competing with food security. </aside>

Photos

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