Kelp-based straws will beat the price of paper straw competitors later this year and could under-price plastic straws by the end of 2020.
The young woman strode past the three judges and spoke directly to the Standing Room Only audience of more than 1000. “I am Chelsea Briganti, my company is LOLIWARE, and we are part of a plastics-free movement. We believe that single-use plastics should never be designed to last forever. They should be designed to disappear.”
This was the long-awaited final pitch-off between what had begun as a large flock of eager entrepreneurs two days earlier. I was at the Collision Conference, held towards the end of each May, this year for the first time in Toronto. I had already listened to Chelsea’s pitch twice before, each time with 3 new judges, as she advanced through the competition, and it was clear to me she was getting consistently better. The first time she had 15 minutes and was able to use a larger slide deck to tell her story with images and numbers. This final time she had only 5 minutes, just a few slides, and the competition was the two very best other finalists from the entire contest. One was a Silicon Valley gourmet vegan food delivery and mail order service. The other was a wireless credit bank for under-served parts of rural Africa.