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It looks fake , or at least like a good illusion : There’sGecko Materialsfounder Dr. Capella Kerst swing a full wine feeding bottle from her pinkie digit , the only thing keeping it from smash to pieces being the crack - strong dry - adhesive her inauguration has brought to securities industry .
But it ’s no trick . It ’s the result of geezerhood of donnish research that Kerst , who holds a PhD in mechanical engineering science from Stanford University , built on by inventing a method acting to mass - construct the adhesive . revolutionize by the way real - life gecko feet grip aerofoil , you could imagine of it like a new Velcro — except it only needs one side , depart no balance , and can come off as quickly as it bond . It can do this at least 120,000 metre and , as Kerst remark in a late audience with TechCrunch , can stay attached for second , minute , or even age .
Kerst has spend the last few year giving this wizardly conjuring trick - style demonstration any and everywhere : At VC happy hour , during slant meetings , and on TikTok and Instagram Reels . And it put to work . Not just mechanically , but as a method acting of quickly entrance investors and customer . Gecko Materials raised a $ 2 million seed bout in 2021 in less than 36 hours , and boasts Ford , Pacific Gas & Electric , and even NASA as early customers .
Yes , before Kerst makes her delivery on the Startup Battlefield stage atTechCrunch Disrupt 2024 , Gecko Materials ’ adhesive has already been to distance .
The adhesive is incredibly strong . One square - inch tile of it can have 15 pounds , vertically , while six of them is enough to pull a car . It works by leveragingvan der Waals forces , which necessitate interaction at the intermolecular level .
It can be complicated to read , so Kerst like to lean on what Gecko ’s cloth isnot .
“ It ’s not body waste , it ’s not tape , it ’s not glue , it ’s not micro - hook , ” Kerst explicate . It does n’t necessitate an electrical thrill of any kind . It ’s also not based on suction , which is what some other companies that promise gecko - like adhesive agent tend to use , Kerst wryly take note . sucking - based methods create tightness of military unit , she said , think of force is applied unevenly , potentially causing fractures or leaving debris behind .
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Really , she said , Gecko ’s material is more like micro hairs that are 1/100th of the size of a tomentum on a person ’s promontory . When apply to a tranquil or semi - smooth surface , they pluck down and “ shear ” to produce “ an extremely inviolable force . ” overstretch in the polar direction at anything more than 20 point relative to the carpenter’s plane of that shear and it detaches in msec .
This makes it potential to uniformly laden the force and , just as importantly , uniformlydisengagethe force-out , which means it can be used for very delicate object like quartz wafer , methamphetamine , solar jury , or even nutrient item like eggs and rotten tomatoes .
So far that has mean it is a great material for robots or drones that do lots of pick and placing , which is one cause Gecko Material has found early success with manufacturers .
“ We ’re eliminating the traditional pitfalls of adhesives , ” Kerst said .
The wine-colored bottle demo is emblematic of how Kerst wants to approach mass - manufacturing Gecko Materials adhesive material . It ’s simple , but impactful . The demonstration “ gets people ’s ideas flowing , ” Kerst told TechCrunch . “ We ’re a public benefit corp . , so we are for - net , but I desire to avail people preserve energy , sentence , and money , and just bestow back innovation in the computer hardware space . ”
It ’s such a tempting product to play with that , in arecent audience with YouTube show The Pitch , she had a prospective investor quick to pony up $ 1,200 on the spot to take a piece home . ( In part , funnily enough , so the investor could show it to some magician friends . )
Getting that price down is a goal as Gecko Material scales production , Kerst admit . The current cost is around 10 times more than other vulgar adhesive option like 3 M ’s command airstrip . But Gecko Material already has software - like porcine profit margins of more than 80 % on the material , and Kerst is quick to point out that 3 MB command strips can only really be used once .
Gecko Material already generated more than $ 700,000 in revenue in 2023 , and Kerst enounce the company has a “ clear path ” with its current pay client to do $ 75 million in annual recurring tax income in five years . It ’s also in the process of raising another bout of funding to scale operations .
“ I ’m really passionate about being capable to make local manufacturing more sustainable and bring that around the world , ” Kerst allege . She also does not shy from the Velcro comparisons . “ I do see a pathway in which Gecko Materials is like a menage name , a general name . Obviously , we ’re already a space - wide-eyed name , ” she smiled .
