Meet our team
Co-Founder
Volha Shapaval, PhD
Volha Shapaval holds two MSc in Microbiology and Food and Biotechnology, and a PhD in Biospectroscopy. She is Professor in Bioprocess Technology at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) and her main scientific interest is fungal fermentation. She is one of the developers of Chitofun technology. She has experience with developing fungal fermentations, optimization of bioprocesses, and is one of the pioneers in biospectroscopy of microbial biomass.
CTO & Co-Founder
Simona Dzurendova, PhD
Assistant Professor, Brno University of Technology
Simona has a scientific background within chemistry, microbial biotechnology and fungal fermentation. She has experience with optimization of bioprocesses, biospectroscopy and fractionation of microbial biomass into various products and their functional characterization. She is one of the developers of chitosan technology, which originates from her PhD and researcher work at NMBU.
CEO & Co-founder
Ellen Altenborg, PhD
Associate Professor at BI Business School
Seasoned entrepreneur with experience from commercializing deep tech startup Saga Robotics from university spin out to successful scaleup.
25 years of business experience and holds a PhD in Strategy from NHH Norwegian School of Economics.
Recently became an academic, teaching entrepreneurship and strategy
Co-Founder
Achim Kohler, PhD
Professor in Physics and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He holds a strong background in multivariate data analysis. He was a pioneer in developing photonics and multivariate data analysis based prediction of chemical composition of microorganisms.
He holds a PhD in Physics from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.
Business Developer
Tellef Fladmark Larsen
Tellef holds a BSc in Business & Economics from BI Business School, in addition to a year of Mathematics & Programming. Incoming MSc student at NHH where he will specialise in Economics & Finance.
Tellef has 3 years of experience from startups and has audit and accounting experience from part time jobs and internships.
Do you want to be a part of our team? Do not hesitate to contact CEO Ellen Altenborg at: