Capillum
Creation date: 2019
Field: hair collection and recycling
Status: Start-up
Workforce: 20 employees
Site: www.capillum.fr
Support: Squarelab, Village By CA
Award: Trophées des Entreprises du Puy De Dôme
Highlights :
meeting with:
Clément Baldellou and James Taylor founders of Capillum
>> Their LinkedIn: C. Baldellou, James Taylor
How do you turn waste into a resource? To this hair-raising question, two students from Clermont School of business have come up with an answer that can be summed up in three syllables: Capillum. In 2019, Clément Baldellou and James Taylor are setting up the first hair collection and recycling chain, skilfully blending eco-friendly projects, technological successes and the circular economy.
Idea → collection → recycling
A game of table soccer can change your life. In 2019, Clément Baldellou and James Taylor met during a game played at the Clermont School of business. History doesn’t say who won, but that day they decided to join forces. They had an idea: to make hair the resource of tomorrow. How could they do it? Firstly, by collecting hair at source, in hairdressing salons: every day, a million French men and women pass through their doors, generating 4,000 tonnes of cut hair every year, which is then thrown away. With a few exceptions, “it’s all just thrown away”, explains Clément B. Secondly, by exploiting their properties to enable them to replace other materials such as plastic.
The superpowers of hair
Because hair is simply wonderful! It’s a natural fiber 95% composed of keratin, the main constituent of hair, feathers, beaks and nails – expensive and complex to synthesize. Above all, hair is light, strong, elastic, resistant to temperature variations and absorbs up to eight times its own weight. “From that moment on, we were convinced that hair could replace other, more polluting materials”, explains James T.
The two student-entrepreneurs have a vision, but not the scientific skills or the necessary network. No matter. “Knowing that you don’t know is a strength, andall we had to do was surround ourselves with specialists to make the idea a reality.”
They knocked on the doors of Clermont-Ferrand hairdressers, Valtom to discuss recycling, then UCA in search of researchers specializing in fibers. “By recruiting a chemist intern through the ESC, we created the very first bridge between the business school and the chemistry institute in Clermont-Ferrand,” comments James T.
Mulching, pollution control and more
Following initial success in the laboratory, Capillum is now developing hair-based products. To begin with, biodegradable mulching products under the Capinea brand, to protect crops, limit watering and weeding, while keeping pests at bay. Result: even with less water, plants grow better.
These mulching products are ensuring “triple-digit” growth. 80% of sales are made on a B-to-B basis to market gardeners, horticulturists, nurserymen, foresters and others. But also, through supermarkets, to Sunday gardeners… like Karine Le Marchand (!). Seduced, the presenter of L’Amour est dans le pré didn’t hesitate to praise the merits of the Clermont-Ferrand start-up this summer.
On the R&D front, Capillum continues to build on its success. The company has begun testing its own soil and ocean remediation socks with NGOs. Other (still top-secret) projects are in the pipeline, again in the plant-based field, as well as in medical innovation.
A sector born of a dense ecosystem
Labeled a Greentech Innovation by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition in 2022, Capillum has taken on many challenges: that of harvesting 15 tons of hair a month from over 5,000 partner hairdressing salons; that of the technical and industrial feats that have led it to design its tools to give hair a second life “thanks to a process unique in the world with no added chemicals or petro-sourced products” and that of developing its own products.
Profitability, however, is not far off. The company’s recent move to Parc Cataroux could change all that: its surface area has increased from 60 m² to 1,700 m², and it now has a place at the Centre des matériaux durables, the XXL incubator for start-ups working in the fields of collaborative innovation and ecological transition.
But before thinking global, entrepreneurs know what they owe to their ecosystem. The confidence of Clermont-Ferrand’s first salons, the VetAgro Sup agronomy campus, the Hall32 industry trade school, the UCA Clermont-Ferrand Chemistry Institute, the Louis-Pasteur-Marmilhat high school, hairdressing schools…
We’re very attached to Clermont-Ferrand,” James T. points out. For a start-up, it’s ideal: neither too small to guarantee expertise in all fields, nor too big to develop a close relationship with the industry. It’s rare!
“And precious,” bounces Clément B., “that makes 90% of a project’s success!”