From Spider-Man to Spidey Tek: How Roberto Velozzi is Spinning the Future of Sustainable Materials
What if Spider-Man’s web were real? For Roberto Velozzi, founder and CEO of Spidey Tek, that question turned into a lifelong pursuit, and eventually, a business.
Originally from El Salvador, Roberto’s journey from comic-book fan to biotech innovator has been anything but ordinary. After decades of research, his team discovered how to produce spider silk proteins at scale—creating a material that’s stronger than steel, lighter than carbon fiber, and completely biodegradable.
In this episode, Roberto shares how Spidey Tek went from lab experiment to a company attracting attention from aerospace giants, automotive manufacturers, and materials science firms across the world. With a production model built on alfalfa plants and partnerships that remove traditional manufacturing barriers, Spidey Tek stands at the edge of a sustainable-materials revolution.
If you’re an investor, innovator, or anyone fascinated by nature-inspired technology, this conversation is a masterclass in turning impossible science into scalable impact.
What you’ll discover today…
- (02:10) The “aha moment” that turned science fiction into science fact
- (05:00) Early adopters and investors who believed before mass production
- (06:30) Scaling spider silk using an alfalfa-based production platform
- (11:40) Partnerships, fundraising, and the $5 million scale-up plan
- (18:00) The power of building the right team and leadership under pressure
- (18:50) Refugee roots, resilience, and redefining what “hard” really means
- (19:50) Advice for scientists and engineers building hard-tech startups
- (23:30) The five-floor elevator pitch that sums up Spidey Tek’s trillion-dollar potential
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Guest: Roberto Velozzi
Roberto Velozzi is the CEO at Spidey Tek, Inc. He previously worked as Director of Special Projects and Sustainability at Group Lotus. He completed his education at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Harvard Business School.
Host: Peng Cau
Peng Cau is a seasoned entrepreneur and innovation leader in advanced manufacturing and industrial automation. She co-founded Transformix Engineering, scaling it into a global automation powerhouse acquired by ATS Corporation in a substantial eight-figure valuation deal. Today, she leads the Startup Program at Siemens Digital Industries Software, supporting deeptech and hardtech founders in scaling transformative technologies. A recognized voice in Canada’s tech ecosystem, Peng serves on several boards, including Reko International Group and the Kingston Economic Development Board. A refugee from Cambodia, her journey from survival to success has earned her national accolades and a respected place in Canada’s business and innovation landscape.
Spidey Tek is a biotech company with a sustainable, alfalfa-based novel protein synthesis platform. They are dedicated to mass producing spider silk proteins for a wide range of transportation, aerospace, engineering and medical applications. They have succesfully created a proprietary and scalable method to generate aqueous solutions of recombinant Spider Silk proteins (rSSps). From these easily generated aqueous solutions of rSSps, they are able to create a wide variety of materials: fibers, films, hydrogels, lyogels, sponges, and adhesives with studies of their mechanical and structural properties. Learn more here.
Pioneers: Startups from Dreams to Reality
Ideas alone can’t change the world. It takes grit, and serious funding. In Pioneers, host Peng Cau sits down with startup founders to discuss the startup lifestyle— from concept to execution— and the big ideas that fuel these pioneers. From the future of farming to autonomous flight, there’s no frontier too far.
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