“It had to be us”: meet Catalyse NEB 2026 founders

A pomegranate pushed off a sorting line in Peru because of a scratch on its skin. A room in Gabon filling with smoke from a mosquito coil, in a place where getting malaria several times a year counts as normal. Two 19-year-olds, one of them now in a wheelchair after a motorbike crash, and the other asking himself why he can still ride and his friend can’t.

None of these moments looked like the start of a company. But for founders of Catalyse NEB 2026, each was the point where “someone should fix this” became “it has to be us”.

They come to it from very different places. What they share is how they work. Their companies are built to be sustainable and beautiful, and above all, they are built together with the people they serve. These are their stories.

BioFashionTech: unlocking textile waste’s power

Fabiola Polli, founder of BioFashionTech

“Coming from an academic background in life sciences and growing up in Italy surrounded by fashion, I always saw textiles as something crafted with care. But then I looked at the reality of end-of-life clothes: mountains of mixed-fibre garments burned, incinerated, or dumped across landscapes in Chile and Africa. I realised current recycling was failing. The industry was either destroying valuable synthetic fibres or relying on toxic chemistry.

I knew nature had already solved this. If you look at nature, nothing is ever wasted. Bees don’t destroy pollen, they transform it into honey. Biological systems don’t discard, they transform.

That was the spark for BioFashionTech. We use specialised enzymes to take mixed fibres apart instead of burning them. We break down the cotton in poly-cotton blends into fermentable sugars, while recovering intact, high-value fibres like polyester and aramid, without toxic chemicals.

It had to be me because my life science background and my Italian fashion roots gave me a different perspective. Where others saw a toxic waste crisis destroying landscapes, I saw an untapped biological resource: one that could produce second-generation sugars to one day feed biorefineries, or even help address global food security.”

Lensor: habitat assessment software for the built environment

Lisa Theman, founder of Lensor

“I’m from Finland, so nature is personal for me. Lensor started as a project. I spent time talking to ecologists and farmers in multiple countries, the people who work closest to nature. What stayed with me was how much they had to decide without solid nature and biodiversity data, which makes resilient land use difficult. I realised decision-makers needed better support.

My background is in entrepreneurship and sustainability. The challenge I noticed from the start was that tools for nature were either scientifically strong but hard to use and expensive, or easy to use but not trusted by ecologists. I’m not an ecologist or a deep-tech person, and that is exactly why I knew I could build the solution and bridge the two worlds.”

For Lensor, the NEB value that shapes the work right now is together:

“Decisions for nature involve decision-makers, land managers and regulators, and each sees a different part of the picture. So we build that into how we work with customers. In a restoration project, the customer provides their site data and observations. We combine it with high-resolution satellite, LiDAR and ecological data, then bring the results back to them for review.

That way of working has a cost. It takes more conversations and slower early stages than building alone, and sometimes we have to rethink our approach when the people on site have limited time or data to share. But it has paid off. Their input makes our results more accurate and easier to trust, and customers use them because they helped shape them. In one pilot, a customer saw the potential to save around one month of work every year using our tool.”

Nada: clean oils, cleaner planet

Francesco Persivale and Minjeong (MJ) Ji, co-founders of Nada

“Nada started as two problems that didn’t know about each other.

One of us was standing at a sorting line in Peru, watching pomegranates get rejected for a scratch on the skin. The other was hearing cosmetic buyers say they couldn’t find natural oils they could trust. It took us a while to realise we were looking at the same fruit from two ends.

Francesco was in Peru, working with fruit exporters through his previous startup. At EGA’s packing house, he watched pomegranates with sunburn marks or unusual shapes get pushed off the line, even though parts of the fruit could still be put to use.

MJ was at the other end of the chain. As a chemical engineer with experience in extraction processes, she kept hearing from cosmetic buyers in Korea and Europe that natural oils could be inconsistent in quality and difficult to trace. Pomegranate seed oil was already on their wish list.

Three years on, we have tested supercritical CO₂ extraction on discarded seeds. The first lab samples showed 25% more antioxidant content than the commercial benchmark.

Why us? Between us, we connect a farm in Peru, a lab in Luxembourg and beauty buyers from Seoul to Paris, and very few teams can stand in all three.”

That is also why together is the NEB value that fits them best:

“For us, together means connecting people who would not normally be working on the same problem. A packing house in Peru and a cosmetic formulation team in Europe might seem worlds apart, but the gap between them is exactly where we saw an opportunity for Nada.”

Recycllux: AI-powered coastal protection

Sorina Uleia, founder of Recycllux

“A coastline is never just a stretch of land meeting the sea. It is where children grow up, families build memories, fishers earn their living, and entire communities find their identity.

When pollution reaches these places, the damage goes far beyond the environment. Beaches lose their beauty, local businesses lose opportunities, municipalities face growing costs, and communities risk losing something that cannot easily be measured: their connection to the sea.

When I founded Recycllux, I believed technology could help us see marine pollution differently. Through satellite data and artificial intelligence, we could identify where pollution accumulates and where intervention is most urgently needed.

But I soon realised that seeing the problem was not the same as solving it. The real challenge was connecting knowledge with responsibility, local capacity and action.

That insight reshaped our entire approach. Today, we work to connect coastal authorities with local actors that can act, turning fragmented efforts into coordinated, measurable interventions.

For me, the New European Bauhaus principle of together captures what matters most: protecting our coastlines should never be something we do for communities, but something we build with them.”

Terra Distilla: a natural solution for mosquito control

Pieta Thuring and Jim Thuring, sibling co-founders of Terra Distilla

“I was in Gabon for the funeral of a dear friend. It was malaria season, and wherever I went I heard the same stories: children and adults getting sick several times a year. The main protection I saw was mosquito coils, which fill a room with smoke.

What stayed with me most was that to them, this was normal. I remember thinking: this isn’t normal.

I grew up in Africa and was lucky enough never to get sick. My brother, on the other hand, was the one the mosquitoes always found. We decided to come together after all these years. It’s been a slow process, and we haven’t solved the mosquito problem just yet, but we’re working on it. We will eventually move back to Africa, and that’s why Terra Distilla exists. It had to be us, because it’s where we started and where we will end.”

For Terra Distilla, the guiding value is beautiful:

“Beautiful is one of the core pillars Terra Distilla is founded on, and it shapes how my brother and I run the company day to day. There is lost wisdom in the plants our ancestors trusted for protection, and we are bringing some of this knowledge back. For us, beauty means we design around scent as an experience, and as a reminder of plant wisdom.

That choice comes with a trade-off. These plants have been known for generations, but academia is only now beginning to research them. So we need to do extra testing, and it could mean a longer road to market. We choose it anyway, because we believe in natural and effective protection that supports our mental and physical well-being while also being a pleasure to use. It reminds us of our connection to nature, and of the importance of being in harmony with ourselves, with each other and with the planet.”

VOAR Motors: autonomy is no exception

Álvaro Soto Táboas, founder of VOAR Motors

“Think about the thing you like to do most, and then think about what it would mean to never do it again. Have you ever thought about that? That seed has guided my life since I started loving motorcycles.

We were 19 when my friend had a motorbike crash that left him in a wheelchair. From that moment, as an engineering student, I started to think: ‘Why can’t he ride a motorbike, but I can?’ That simple thought started a change that, 10 years later, became a real solution that many people across Europe need.

At first I didn’t have the means to make it real. So I started by applying to a regional mobility incubator, then to a bigger accelerator, then meeting people who also wanted to be part of the project. What set the core team apart was that we all loved motorbikes, and we all knew what it would mean to stop riding. Today, it’s that same passion, and the wish to give people the chance to ride again, that gives me the strength to make this happen.”

For VOAR, the NEB value that rings truest is beautiful, though not in the way you might expect:

“Beauty is not only about aesthetics. It’s also about sharing time, enjoying moments and growing together. Riding a bike is the perfect example: your motorcycle can be the most beautiful one, but the best thing is to ride it with your friends on a weekend route.

In the same way, I love and believe in this project, but its beauty is in sharing it with the people who will finally enjoy this motorbike. From the beginning, we worked with end users to develop the motorbike around their real needs, and we learnt much more than we expected, and not only about technical issues.

When we were selected for Catalyse NEB 2026, we weren’t fully aware of the connections that were coming. Being able to share our experiences with other entrepreneurs across Europe and hear their stories has become important for our lives and our projects. It’s not only about making friends, but about connecting with people on the same path as you.”