Urobo Biotech among top 22 startups of the Hult Prize
28.07.2025
Urobo Biotech has been selected from over 188,000 candidates from 131 countries, entering the group of the top 22 student startups to participate in the Hult Prize Global Accelerator.
Urobo Biotech, a young company born from the collaboration between Italy and South Africa, is led by Wessel Myburgh, CEO and post-doc at the University of Padua and Stellenbosch University, Dominique Rocher, COO and PhD student at the University of Padua, Lorenzo Favaro, professor at the University of Padua, and Marinda Viljoen-Bloom and Willem van Zyl, both professors at Stellenbosch University. The company has achieved significant results. It has been selected to participate in the Global Accelerator, held from August 6 to September 4 at Ashridge House near London, and has won 4 out of 5 pitching contests, ranking among the top 5 "fast-tracked" teams in the competition, considered the largest in the world for student startups that generate measurable social, economic, and environmental impacts.
After being chosen from over 188,000 candidates, Urobo Biotech will refine its business idea through five successive stages, receive scientific guidance, and compete to win 1 million dollars. This is a significant achievement for the talented team members, Wessel Myburgh, Dominique Rocher, and Daniele Vezzini, PhD student in Crop Science at the University of Padua in co-tutorship with Stellenbosch University. The winning team of the Hult Prize will receive 1 million dollars to invest in their activity and take it to the next level, with the final scheduled for September 5 at Tate Modern in London.
In 2023, Urobo Biotech already participated in Prototypes for Humanity, the largest global gathering of talent and innovation, in the "Energy, Efficiency, and Waste" category during COP28 in Dubai. The project of Urobo Biotech focuses on developing enzymatic and microbiological processes to convert end-of-life bioplastics into high-value bioproducts such as fine chemicals and biofuels, as explained by Lorenzo Favaro of the Department of Agronomy, Animals, Food, Natural Resources, and Environment, professor and extraordinary professor of Microbiology at Stellenbosch University:
This technology, by enabling the selective depolymerization of bioplastics both in fossil plastic waste streams for recycling and in the management of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW), can increase the production of renewable energy from end-of-life bioplastics through the developed biotechnological solutions, creating added value for OFMSW management plants. Urobo Biotech thus presents itself as a key innovator in the management of end-of-life bioplastics, aiming at new solutions for recycling and enhancing bioplastics within a circular economy.
