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InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that’s stronger than steel


The material has 50% more tensile strength than steel with a strength-to-weight ratio that’s ten-times better.

Rather than give up, Hu spent the next few years refining the technology, reducing the time it took to make the material from more than a week to a few hours. The round was led by the Grantham Foundation with participation from Baruch Future Ventures, Builders VC, and Muus Climate Partners, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The company treats it with “food industry” chemicals to modify the lignin in the wood, he said, and then compresses the result to increase the hydrogen bonds between cellulose molecules.

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