Vanja Jurišić i Nikola Španić
Episode · #801
PAMETNA HRVATSKA Vanja Jurišić i Nikola Španić, powered by Janaf
Guest Vanja Jurišić i Nikola ŠpanićHosted by Marijana MatkovićJune 3, 2026
About this episode
What you'll hear in this conversation
Imagine a world where the plastic film wrapping your produce simply disappears in weeks, rather than persisting for millennia. This is the premise behind Fybrion, a Croatian startup founded by Vanja Jurišić from the Faculty of Agronomy and Nikola Španić from the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology. They have developed a bio-based, biodegradable alternative to conventional plastic, crafted from agricultural biomass and wood industry waste—materials long considered refuse. Their work takes what was once discarded and converts it into a sustainable solution for food packaging. This conversation explores the journey from academic research to startup, revealing the practicalities and challenges of building a future free from plastic pollution.
Insights from the conversation
What to take from this episode
01
"It all started professorially," Vanja Jurišić recalls, with a student project involving students from both their faculties. The idea then stalled completely for a time, only to be revived "in the eleventh hour" for a startup program. Groundbreaking ideas often emerge from academic collaborations, but their path to market is rarely linear; sometimes, the right opportunity requires an old project to be dusted off and pushed forward at the last minute.
02
Fybrion's bioplastic is made from "agricultural biomass and wood industry waste," raw materials that are "not in any conflict with the food chain" and have "for many years been regarded as waste." The true promise of a circular economy lies in finding value in discarded materials that don't compete with existing critical resources like food.
03
Nikola Španić contrasts Fybrion's material with a fourth-grader's recent discovery that a chocolate bar wrapper takes "thousands of years" to degrade. Fybrion's film, by comparison, degrades in "a few weeks." The real measure of a sustainable material isn't just its origin, but its end-of-life cycle—how quickly it can return to basic elements without requiring complex disposal by the end-user.
04
Vanja explains that their bioplastic is designed to be thrown into "mixed waste," so a citizen "doesn't even have to think about where to put" it, rather than requiring specific separation. For a green innovation to truly scale, it must integrate into existing, imperfect consumer behaviors and waste systems, rather than demanding new, difficult habits from the public.
05
Nikola points out that common bioplastic alternatives like polylactic acid (PLA) are derived from corn starch, which presents a "moral problem" because it uses food resources. Fybrion's solution is "quite a bit lower" in production price. A viable bioplastic alternative needs to address not only environmental impact but also ethical sourcing and cost efficiency, avoiding competition for food crops and remaining economically competitive.
06
Despite successful lab-scale development, Nikola emphasizes the next hurdle: "scaling production" from "one liter of input" to "ten thousand liters" and then re-testing all material properties. Proving a green technology in the lab is only the beginning; the real test of its viability and the true cost of development lie in the complex, iterative process of scaling it to industrial output.
07
Vanja notes that in their search for funding, they've found Croatian investment funds tend to "focus more on software development, artificial intelligence, fintech," and "don't dare" to invest in deep tech like theirs. Founders in hard tech, particularly those building physical products, often need to look beyond local investment ecosystems when domestic capital is biased towards software and digital solutions.
08
The host suggests that given the global drive to eliminate plastic, the guests "shouldn't have problems" finding investors for their solution. While strong market demand is a prerequisite for any new technology, it doesn't automatically guarantee easy investment in deep tech, where the path from lab to industrial scale requires patient capital and a clear understanding of the development timeline.
Vanja Jurišić i Nikola Španić