MISSION
We Partner with
Mycelium to Grow
Alternative Futures
SQIM is founded on the belief that innovative natural materials, grown by means of microbial fermentation, hold the promise for the creation of a near future where human activities and the rhythms of the larger ecosystem are not in conflict with each other.
Accordingly, SQIM co-designs with nature to develop cutting edge technologies and deliver naturally grown products with superior properties, employing fungal mycelium as its engineering and manufacturing platform.
Combining the potential of mycelium-based biofabrication with a deep understanding of the biology behind it, and thanks to an industrial approach inspired by vertical farming, today SQIM is capable of serving its own verticals with advanced technologies, addressing different markets and applications.
MYCELIUM UNBOUND
A Radically
Generative
Production Paradigm
Fungi are the natural agents creating ecosystems: their principal role is to sustain life on this planet, and to unmake, regenerate and restore broken systems. Mycelium is their tight network of branching filamentous cells, capable of forming different types of structures.
At SQIM we feed mycelium with organic residues from other industries, and we guide it through our custom fermentation processes, letting it assemble in a variety of materials, whose properties vary according to the specific applications targeted.
Thanks to SQIM’s unique approach and to the powerful chemistry that fungi are capable of, Mycelium is the ideal partner allowing for shifting from an exploitative to a thoroughly generative paradigm rooted in bio-fabrication, and remodelling the way we produce things.
SQIM’s solutions can be rapidly grown and finished, defining entirely novel materials’ categories.
As of today, SQIM has developed unique proprietary processes for creating a variety of mycelium-based solutions, currently addressing through its verticals/brands the Fashion market as well as the Interior Design & Architecture market – respectively EPHEA and MOGU.
An unprecedented class of naturally
superior, functional, high quality
materials, for fashion and beyond
With EPHEA™️, SQIM brings to market an entirely new class of flexible mycelium materials.
EPHEA™️ is not a leather replacement, but rather a set of products setting a new standard, thanks to the values, functionalities and overall opportunities provided by mycelium-based biofabrication.
Ranging from an appreciation for its premium haptics, to the validated reactivity in processes of chemical transformation, EPHEA™️ has received recognition by high-end industrial actors exposed to the product, evaluating it as the leading mycelium-based alternative.
Thanks to the achieved products’ quality, today SQIM has partnered with prestigious fashion and luxury brands to launch the first mycelium based capsule collections, while actively engaging with leading industrial entities to conduct EPHEA™️ towards commercial scale.
A revolutionary and collaborative work for contributing to a more ethically and environmentally responsible fashion industry.
EPHEA™️ first market launch took place on March 6, 2022 at Paris Fashion Week, as part of Balenciaga’s Winter 2022 runway show, during which the brand has debuted an exclusive floor-length coat realised with EPHEA™️.
Stefano Babbini, CEO of SQIM, commented:
“It is an absolute privilege to finally be able to introduce EPHEA™️ to the global community. Our teams have been working very hard since more than 5 years, driven by the purpose of raising the standard of mycelium flexible materials, for delivering a truly concrete impact in industry. Naturally, EPHEA™️ is also the outcome of well-established partnerships, which are fully coherent with our positioning in the European leather and alternative leather industries, through overall integration within the related value chains.”
Innovative Products for Interior Design & Green Building
Mogu products hold a concrete vision of home, offices, retails, and spaces that embraces the radical character of Nature, to grow a more honest and virtuous relationship with the ecosystem we are part of.
Along the years, Mogu created a unique products’ portfolio over two main lines, namely Acoustic Panels and Flooring Systems.
Thanks to the great aesthetics and their certified technical performance, Mogu’s innovative products have captured the interest of both professional and casual users.
Mogu Acoustic products are the first commercially available articles of their kind, entirely made of fungal mycelium and of upcycled textile residues. Thanks to their unique technology, Mogu Acoustic represents today the most sustainable solution dedicated to acoustic comfort in interior environments.
Mogu Floor is a collection of resilient flooring systems for interior design, strongly based on the combination of technologies that rely on upcycling of agro-industrial residues; a perfect solution to support a circular approach within the building industry.
While keeping expanding its products’ portfolio and supported by independent recognitions for the marketed products and the high quality and standards achieved, Mogu is today also widening its market thanks to multiple prestigious industrial partnerships.
TECHNOLOGY
We employ Nature as the ultimate engineering and manufacturing platform, leveraging billions of years of evolution
SQIM is constantly working on improving and developing cutting edge research and intensive experimentation, to deliver technologies at industrial scale, allowing for GROWING unprecedented materials and products through fermentation.
At SQIM’s core is a first-of-its-kind platform that blends the capabilities of a biofoundry to design, evolve and scale mycelium as an organism, with the industrial approach of vertical farming, allowing SQIM to master both the micro and the macro dimensions of mycelium-based fabrication.
Furthermore, SQIM’s technologies benefit from the deep access to the supply chain and to the vertical actors, resulting in an already proven capability to build strong partnerships and develop brands.
Thanks to the ingenuity and the expertise of its Team and to its wide network of collaborators, SQIM is committed to change the way things are made, through innovative, environmentally responsible solutions.
OUR VALUES
CO-CREATIVE
No matter if interacting with microbial cells or with clients, our work is driven by the will of establishing beneficial symbioses. At the core of our activities lies a strong collaborative approach, to co-design and co-create with multiple partners, while learning, growing, and evolving together.
RADICAL
At SQIM we partner with Nature to make things better. We nurture tradition through the introduction of a radical paradigm shift expressing revolutionary potentials for production. Accordingly, beyond any form of shallow substitution or replacement, we evolve new standards that were priorly unthinkable of.
UNBOUND
SQIM’s technologies and products are fundamentally rooted in (re-)generative processes, offering unconstrained opportunities, as opposed to extractive approaches and to their inherent limitations. We fuse our advanced technological capabilities with the unique skills of our microbial partners, to create improved and bespoke sustainable solutions with multiple added values.
SENSUOUS
The products resulting from SQIM technologies incorporate elegance and sensuality, as expressed through the unique touch and to the warm feelings that they elicit. By delivering high technical performance as well as unique haptic experiences, they represent the perfect match between a truly responsible high-quality choice, and the ultimate form of sophistication.
SUSTAINABLE BY NATURE
From Scarcity
to Abundance
SQIM’s technologies are fully rooted in Circular Economy principles, and rely on partnering with fungal microorganisms, employing their mycelium as key intelligence to transform different typologies of residual substrates. Hence allowing to create high-value materials and products within short timeframes and with minimum energy inputs.
Once obtained, raw materials are transformed in competing functional products through further engineering steps, to offer versatility without compromising quality and ecological responsibility.
By matching mycelium based biofabrication processes with Deep Tech & Data-driven Approaches, SQIM’s technologies set the grounds to design a new material world that is responsibly rooted in generative processes, as it is driven by the desire to literally engage with life and for life.
CONTACTS
Keep in touch
with us
SQIM
Via San Francesco d’Assisi 62
21020 Inarzo (VA)
ITALY
General inquiries: contact@sqim.bio
Job opportunities: careers@sqim.bio