Our Chief Sustainability Officer Suma Pakki takes the Startup Day Mainstage in San Francisco this week, pitching ECLIPSE™ as a Materials finalist for Trellis Group's Startup of the Year.
Five weeks ago, we asked you to vote. You did. Today we can say it plainly: Smart Plastic Technologies advanced out of the Materials field of Trellis’s Startups to Watch competition to the in-person finale, and we are in the running to be named Trellis Group’s Startup of the Year.
The deciding pitches happen live during the Startups to Watch Finale on the Startup Day Mainstage — Wednesday, June 24, 9:00–10:30 a.m. at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Suma Pakki and Yaman Peksenar are carrying the SPTek ECLIPSE™ story into the room, in front of thousands of the operators, buyers, and investors who actually move this industry, with leading climate investors as judges.
Trellis Impact is not a trade show with a recycling booth in the corner. It is the premier gathering for sustainable business, convening roughly 2,500 leaders, 300-plus speakers, and 100-plus sessions across the people who turn climate ideas into deployed solutions: Fortune 500 decision-makers, climate-tech founders, and the capital that funds them.
The program is organized around five tracks that, read together, describe the whole arc of the clean economy:
Smart Plastic lives at the intersection of the first and the last. “Close the Loop” is the entire premise of our company: a polyolefin should perform during its useful life, stay recyclable while it is needed, and then, if it escapes recovery, return to nature instead of fragmenting into permanent pollution. “Unlock Startup Innovation” is the bridge we are crossing right now, from validated science to deployed product.
Startups to Watch is a fast-pitch competition across three strategic categories: Data Center Solutions, Material Innovation, and Climate Adaptation. Trellis named the top finalists in each, ran virtual pitch webinars with community voting, and now brings the standouts to the in-person finale. One company walks away as Startup of the Year. Last year that title went to DexMat.
The finale field is a genuinely strong, cross-category group. Joining Smart Plastic on the Startup Day Mainstage are Skyven Technologies, Helix Earth, Airloom Energy, and Mojave Energy Systems — companies working on industrial heat, efficiency, and clean energy. We are the materials answer in that lineup: the one rethinking what plastic becomes after its useful life. Being measured against companies of that caliber, judged by investors from Engine Ventures, Prelude Ventures, Voyager Ventures, VoLo Earth, and At One Ventures, is exactly the kind of pressure a deployment-ready solution should welcome.
It matters that this recognition comes from Trellis specifically. Trellis sets its eligibility bar at Seed-to-Series-A companies that are incorporated, staffed, and have a product ready to test or deploy — traction over hype. That is the conversation we want to be in.
For a startup fighting an entrenched industry, visibility is leverage. The plastics value chain is slow to change, and some of the loudest voices in end-of-life standards have incentives to keep things as they are. A stage like Trellis Impact lets us make our case directly to the people who can adopt ECLIPSE™ — brand owners, converters, and packaging buyers — without waiting for permission from the gatekeepers.
The recognition also arrives at a moment when capital is flowing to climate companies that can show results rather than slides. We are not pitching a concept. SPTek ECLIPSE™ is a drop-in additive at roughly 1% inclusion that requires no retooling, is FDA-compliant for food contact (GRAS), and runs on existing extrusion lines. Independent testing validates bio-assimilation across marine, terrestrial, and anaerobic landfill conditions, with no microplastic residue left behind. And the model is already working in market: more than $1.1M in sales through Q1 2026 and a manufacturing partnership with Sigma Plastics.
That is the difference we will put in front of the judges. Most material solutions ask the world to rebuild its infrastructure first. SPTek ECLIPSE™ asks for one percent.
Whatever the judges decide this week, the meaning is the same. Smart Plastic is being taken seriously, on the main stage of sustainable business, as a materials company with science behind it and product in the market. That is how a new standard takes hold: not by shouting louder than the incumbents, but by showing buyers and partners that a better end-of-life outcome is available today, at almost no added cost.
To everyone who voted, shared, and believed plastic should be engineered with its full lifecycle in mind: thank you. You helped get us here.
If you are at Trellis Impact 26, watch the Startups to Watch Finale on the Startup Day Mainstage Wednesday morning, and come find Suma and Yaman afterward. Let’s build a smarter standard together.
Smart Plastic Technologies develops materials solutions designed to improve plastic end-of-life outcomes. Its platform, including SPTek ECLIPSE™, is built to work with conventional polyolefins (PE and PP) while supporting a more responsible path when plastic is not recovered. Learn more at changetheplastic.com.
Five weeks ago, we asked you to vote. You did. Today we can say it plainly: Smart Plastic Technologies advanced out of the Materials field of Trellis’s Startups to Watch competition to the in-person finale, and we are in the running to be named Trellis Group’s Startup of the Year.
The deciding pitches happen live during the Startups to Watch Finale on the Startup Day Mainstage — Wednesday, June 24, 9:00–10:30 a.m. at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Suma Pakki and Yaman Peksenar are carrying the SPTek ECLIPSE™ story into the room, in front of thousands of the operators, buyers, and investors who actually move this industry, with leading climate investors as judges.
Trellis Impact is not a trade show with a recycling booth in the corner. It is the premier gathering for sustainable business, convening roughly 2,500 leaders, 300-plus speakers, and 100-plus sessions across the people who turn climate ideas into deployed solutions: Fortune 500 decision-makers, climate-tech founders, and the capital that funds them.
The program is organized around five tracks that, read together, describe the whole arc of the clean economy:
Smart Plastic lives at the intersection of the first and the last. “Close the Loop” is the entire premise of our company: a polyolefin should perform during its useful life, stay recyclable while it is needed, and then, if it escapes recovery, return to nature instead of fragmenting into permanent pollution. “Unlock Startup Innovation” is the bridge we are crossing right now, from validated science to deployed product.
Startups to Watch is a fast-pitch competition across three strategic categories: Data Center Solutions, Material Innovation, and Climate Adaptation. Trellis named the top finalists in each, ran virtual pitch webinars with community voting, and now brings the standouts to the in-person finale. One company walks away as Startup of the Year. Last year that title went to DexMat.
The finale field is a genuinely strong, cross-category group. Joining Smart Plastic on the Startup Day Mainstage are Skyven Technologies, Helix Earth, Airloom Energy, and Mojave Energy Systems — companies working on industrial heat, efficiency, and clean energy. We are the materials answer in that lineup: the one rethinking what plastic becomes after its useful life. Being measured against companies of that caliber, judged by investors from Engine Ventures, Prelude Ventures, Voyager Ventures, VoLo Earth, and At One Ventures, is exactly the kind of pressure a deployment-ready solution should welcome.
It matters that this recognition comes from Trellis specifically. Trellis sets its eligibility bar at Seed-to-Series-A companies that are incorporated, staffed, and have a product ready to test or deploy — traction over hype. That is the conversation we want to be in.
For a startup fighting an entrenched industry, visibility is leverage. The plastics value chain is slow to change, and some of the loudest voices in end-of-life standards have incentives to keep things as they are. A stage like Trellis Impact lets us make our case directly to the people who can adopt ECLIPSE™ — brand owners, converters, and packaging buyers — without waiting for permission from the gatekeepers.
The recognition also arrives at a moment when capital is flowing to climate companies that can show results rather than slides. We are not pitching a concept. SPTek ECLIPSE™ is a drop-in additive at roughly 1% inclusion that requires no retooling, is FDA-compliant for food contact (GRAS), and runs on existing extrusion lines. Independent testing validates bio-assimilation across marine, terrestrial, and anaerobic landfill conditions, with no microplastic residue left behind. And the model is already working in market: more than $1.1M in sales through Q1 2026 and a manufacturing partnership with Sigma Plastics.
That is the difference we will put in front of the judges. Most material solutions ask the world to rebuild its infrastructure first. SPTek ECLIPSE™ asks for one percent.
Whatever the judges decide this week, the meaning is the same. Smart Plastic is being taken seriously, on the main stage of sustainable business, as a materials company with science behind it and product in the market. That is how a new standard takes hold: not by shouting louder than the incumbents, but by showing buyers and partners that a better end-of-life outcome is available today, at almost no added cost.
To everyone who voted, shared, and believed plastic should be engineered with its full lifecycle in mind: thank you. You helped get us here.
If you are at Trellis Impact 26, watch the Startups to Watch Finale on the Startup Day Mainstage Wednesday morning, and come find Suma and Yaman afterward. Let’s build a smarter standard together.
Smart Plastic Technologies develops materials solutions designed to improve plastic end-of-life outcomes. Its platform, including SPTek ECLIPSE™, is built to work with conventional polyolefins (PE and PP) while supporting a more responsible path when plastic is not recovered. Learn more at changetheplastic.com.
Trellis’s annual list goes beyond a simple shoutout. Selected startups get profiled on Trellis.net, pitch in webinars to climate executives and investors, and compete for Startup of the Year at Trellis Impact 26 in San Francisco.
The global disconnect around plastic end-of-life isn’t a failure of awareness. It’s a failure of system design.
