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What began as a student exploration into biomaterials at Aalto University has grown into Sealevä, an Aalto student-founded startup on a mission to replace virgin plastics in product design and manufacturing with high-performance, aesthetically compelling alternatives made from seaweed. Their materials are designed to integrate into existing manufacturing processes, making adoption feasible for industry.

Built by a multidisciplinary team and accelerated through the Aalto Design Factory’s Product Development Project (PdP), Sealevä is an example of how Aalto’s innovation ecosystem can turn an early concept into a company with both commercial traction and broader sustainability ambitions. In less than a year, the team has moved from early experimentation to prototypes, industry partnerships, and international exposure—demonstrating the unique potential of Aalto’s innovation ecosystem when education, infrastructure, and entrepreneurial ambition intersect.

For Sealevä, the story started with co-founder Xuefei Shi, an Aalto alum with a background in fashion and biomaterials. While studying in the CHEMARTS program, she began questioning the role of conventional plastics in fashion, sparking the idea for a new material-driven startup.

A Team Built Across Disciplines

The team grew from three founders into a six-person team through PdP including Xuefei Shi, Mohamed Elamir, Ani Järvimäki, Colman Biburn, Sini Kanerva, and Botond Kiss, bringing together design, business, material science, and biomedical engineering competence. For Sealevä, building the right team was not about prior startup experience, but about mindset: a willingness to navigate uncertainty, learn fast, and work across disciplines.

That diversity has been one of Sealevä’s defining strengths, along with its ability to tackle the complexity of developing a physical material. Working with seaweed as a raw material requires continuous experimentation, iteration, and adaptation.

Gaining university-level support became a critical turning point for the startup: “The best decision that the three founders could have made early on was to get involved with PdP,” remarks Lead Designer Coleman Pitburn. Through the course, Sealevä got access to DF’s prototyping facilities, where rapid experimentation became part of their daily workflow. From injection molding and 3D printing to CNC machining and material processing, the team utilized nearly every available resource to test, fail, and refine their material concepts.

Learning by Making

The team’s approach has been highly hands-on from the start. “We have been working on a lot, into using this space well enough to do our fast execution,” CTO, Co-Founder Mohamed Elamir notes, adding that Design Factory and PdP allowed them to iterate toward the final product.

PdP offered Sealevä both structure and access: “We utilized, I think, every single piece of equipment and machinery available in DF,” Coleman states, describing a process of trial and error that helped the team move forward. “There was a bit of a safety net that DF and PdP provided us that I think accelerated our growth.”

Beyond equipment, PdP provided something equally valuable: a framework for accelerated learning. Surrounded by over twenty other teams working under similar timelines, Sealevä benefited from a shared sense of momentum and peer-driven motivation. The six-month structure pushed the team to move quickly — from early prototypes to tangible outcomes — while maintaining a strong feedback loop with potential customers.

“Aalto offers a unique environment where you can go from idea to prototype at an exceptional speed,” the team reflects. “DF gives you the tools, but also the mindset to experiment, iterate, and not be afraid to fail.”

Making the Ecosystem Work

For a physical product startup, this kind of access mattered enormously. “The challenge was how to navigate around the access to the different facilities around Aalto,” Mohamed explains. With support from DF and PdP, the team accessed specialized facilities across the university, including laboratories in the School of Chemical Engineering for extrusion and biomaterial processing, as well as fabrication tools in FabLab. Spaces like Startup Sauna and Space 21 provided additional support, from community and mentorship to practical working environments. “It’s a goldmine for anyone who is building a material company!” Mohamed remarks.

One of the most important benefits of the Aalto ecosystem was that it helped Sealevä connect development with market reality early on. The team set a clear goal to speak with customers from the beginning. A key milestone came with their participation in the ChangeNow conference in Paris in March 2026 where Sealevä publicly showcased their materials for the first time. “Can we get 100 interviews with potential clients, suppliers, and partners?” Mohamed recalls asking at the very beginning. They ended up doing more than 150 interviews over 6 months. “That’s where we were able to contextualize what we’re doing and understand our relevance,” Coleman says. The event led to fruitful connections, proof-of-concept discussions, and letters of intent.

Looking ahead, Sealevä’s ambitions are both concrete and bold. “We want to reach commercialization earlier,” Mohamed declares, with products in the market within two years. In five years, they envision Sealevä materials appearing in fashion accessories, eyewear, and interior design products. The longer-term goal is to help replace “a million piece or a million units” of virgin plastic with more sustainable alternatives.

Advice for Future Founders

For the team, the value of PdP and the broader Aalto ecosystem goes beyond facilities or funding. PdP has not only been a development platform, but a defining experience. It has shaped how they build, collaborate, and think as a company. Mohamed is grateful for Aalto offering a rare opportunity: “The university has worked hard on providing this possibility for entrepreneurs to build stuff here.” In Sealevä’s case, that access has helped transform a student idea into a startup with real momentum.

Sealevä’s story is a strong example of what can happen when multidisciplinary talent, entrepreneurial mindset, and Aalto’s innovation infrastructure come together, combining vision with execution. Mohamed quotes one of DF’s slogans: “Fail faster so that you can succeed sooner!” For Sealevä, that philosophy has already turned seaweed from an idea into a material with the potential to reshape how products are designed and made.

Aalto Design Factory has been developing entrepreneurial pathways in the ecosystem as a part of the EIT HEI funded CODEUNITED project, complementing traditional industry-provided project challenges. PdP is currently looking for the next batch of suitable industry and Aalto student startup projects.