Evanium

More than 70% of plant-based actives are poorly absorbed: hydrophobic, crystalline molecules that barely dissolve, taste bitter, and resist modern formats. Brands compensate with high doses, synthetic solubilizers, or avoid the ingredient entirely. OPTISOLV® removes that trade-off. Our dual-coating system encapsulates actives at the molecular level: a cyclodextrin inner layer confers water affinity, a phospholipid outer layer adds stability, permeability, and taste masking, and stabilises the extract crystal-free. For curcumin, this yields over 1,000× higher water solubility, roughly 170× higher curcuminoid release, and approximately 85× higher absorption in a Caco-2 intestinal model compared with the native extract, achieved exclusively with food-grade, plant-derived excipients. Customers receive a free-flowing powder that drops into existing production lines and performs across capsules, gummies, sachets, and beverages. The result: the same efficacy at a lower dose, shorter development cycles, diverse dosage formats, and clinical-grade performance with fully natural positioning, no efficacy-versus-naturalness compromise.

• Finding the right business model: We launched as a consumer brand before our first angel investors challenged us to monetise the underlying technology itself
• From lab bench to tonnes: Translating a formulation that worked on a gram scale into a reproducible industrial process, and building the manufacturing partnership behind it
• Enterprise sales cycles: Regulatory clarification, technical validation, and formulation trials mean 12–24 months from first contact to purchase order

• Opened access to the TUM food, agro, and biotech ecosystem to leverage the scientific expertise
• Connected us with the wider TUM and UnternehmerTUM network, which led to our participation in the XPRENEURS incubator
• Provided access to industry partners, corporate players, and investors in the food and nutrition value chain
• Access to a peer community of deep-tech life science founders facing comparable scale-up and validation challenges

• One of the biggest lessons we learned is that having a complementary founding team from day one is a huge advantage. Having both strong technical and business expertise allowed us to move much faster and make better decisions together.
• We also spent more than six years developing our technology largely behind closed doors. In hindsight, we would have invested much earlier in building our network and visibility by speaking at events, pitching, and being visible within the ecosystem.
• In the early days, we took many opportunities, just to get off the ground. Grants and custom development projects for companies carried us further than their initial size suggested and let us build the company and technology as we went. The one thing we'd do differently: tie those partnerships to minimum revenue commitments instead of fixed exclusivities.