We analyzed 60 markets to look for great startup opportunities. We gathered size and amount invested to build opportunity scores, then considered falling input costs to pick a few top opportunities to highlight. One of the top opportunities we found was plastic and rubber manufacturing.

Plastic and rubber product manufacturing is a $303B market in the U.S., but there are fewer than a dozen U.S. startups making these products in new ways.

Plastics and rubbers are made today by first extracting coal, oil, or other hydrocarbons from the ground. Then chemicals are added to adjust qualities of the product, like strength, color, or durability. Finally, plastics and rubbers are shaped via extrusion, molding, or other processes. Plastics and rubber are key materials in food and beverage packaging, automotive, and a variety of other applications.

End-of-life processing for plastics and rubber is also a significant sub-market. The plastics recycling market will likely reach $70B globally by 2031.

There are multiple ways new technologies could transform this market. On the manufacturing side, novel materials made from plants, fungi, or synthetic biology could compete with traditional hydrocarbons. On the recycling side, robots and computer vision could help sort different types of plastics into different recycling flows, and novel enzymes could break down plastic into reusable liquids far faster and cheaper than existing processes. Finally, cheap renewable energy could help reduce processing costs if plastics need to be heated during processing.

Dropping Input Costs

Costs for enzyme engineering have dropped 100x in the last 15 years.

Costs for robotic automation have declined 6x over the last 20 years.

Costs for training ML models that can classify different types of plastic with low error rates have declined at least 100x in the last 15 years.

Costs for solar energy have declined 400x in the last 20 years.