In this article, we speak with Dhruv and Tara, who tell us about their startup Cambridge Chromatica, and what they've been working on following their success at the Lucy Enterprise Competition 2023
Can you tell us a bit about yourselves and how you found yourself working on your startup company Cambridge Chromatica?
Our names are Tara and Dhruv and we’re both NanoDTC students at the University and members of Lucy Cavendish College. We’re currently both in the first year of our PhD’s and we first began working on our project together, Cambridge Chromatica, during our Master’s year, where we took part in a business and entrepreneurship module. We really enjoyed working on the project and thought we could take the idea further so following the module we decided to continue our work! That's when we came across the Lucy Entrepreneurship Challenge. We decided to give it a try and we were lucky enough to win one of the prizes!
Can you tell us about our project and idea for Cambridge Chromatica?
Currently, the fashion industry causes a lot of harm to the environment and the people in the local area where the fabrics are produced, and one of the most polluting elements in the production of clothing is the dyes used. These dyes are mostly made of extremely toxic elements that cause a lot of harm to the planet and to the people there. And this is where we hope to help. With the use of generative artificial intelligence, we are currently in the process of designing algorithms to discover new dyes for fabric that won’t harm the environment, while still maintaining the properties we need to dye the fabrics. Following this, we hope to develop methods to synthesize these dye molecules, in the hope of giving large-scale fabric companies the opportunity to make and use these dyes themselves.
Can you tell us about your experience at the Lucy Enterprise Competition and how that helped you to continue developing your startup?
Winning the Lucy Entrepreneurship Challenge was an amazing experience for both of us! Throughout the week, we received incredible feedback and advice from a variety of mentors. It was incredible to be awarded one of the prizes, and by winning this, we were able to cover the costs of additional training for us, as well as meet with patent lawyers to discuss our future opportunities and create a business plan. Going forward, we hope to continue to take on this advice and begin to approach companies that could be interested in our product.
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