As Bolt Threads Goes Public, CEO Explains ‘Big Mismatch’ Hampering Material Innovation

Jasmin Malik Chua
·4 min read

Dan Widmaier, CEO of Bolt Threads, is picking his words carefully.

It was only on Wednesday, after all, that the California-based biomaterials firm announced that it was going public as part of a business combination with Golden Arrow Merger Corp., a so-called blank-check company that seeks to rustle up at least $34 million in financing, including $26 million in private investment in public equity, or PIPE, from existing investors such as Baillie Gifford, Temasek, Top Tier, Founders Fund, Formation 8, Foundation Capital and Golden Arrow Sponsor.

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Widmaier said that the move was almost as surprising to him as it was to a reporter.

“It’s been a weird environment for two years,” he told Sourcing Journal. “[But] when we looked at the world and growing the business going forward and living up to that vision long term, this was the best path. And I’m really excited. It just opens a whole new chapter with a whole new set of opportunities and risks.”

Known as Bolt Projects Holding, the new company is expected to be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol BSLK, a nod to its new tentpole product: B-silk, a bioengineered yeast-derived peptide that Bolt Threads describes as a “completely biodegradable, non-toxic and versatile” alternative to silicone elastomers in beauty and personal care products.

It’s a swivel for the former unicorn, which is now valued at $250 million. While the spider-silk-inspired ingredient has appeared in Sephora-stocked brands such as ​Vegamour​ since at least 2020, Bolt Threads has for years been drumming up attention for Mylo, a mycelium-based material that was widely lauded as a more sustainable substitute for animal leather. Mylo quickly caught the eye of some of fashion’s biggest names, among them Adidas, Kering, Lululemon and Stella McCartney, which formed a consortium with the goal of bringing the material to market. Adidas unveiled a mushroom-clad Stan Smith prototype and Lululemon included Mylo in a pair of gym bags and a yoga mat. In March, a Mylo version of Stella McCartney’s Frayme bag trundled down the runway of Paris Fashion Week.

But the bubble burst in June when Bolt Threads disclosed that it would be pausing Mylo production because it was struggling to raise the money it needed to achieve commercial scale, despite, as Widmaier told Vogue Business at the time, coming “devastatingly close.”

“Despite our intensive efforts, the current macroeconomic climate has made it increasingly difficult to secure the necessary capital to support the scale-up of emerging technologies,” the company would later say in a statement. “As a result, Bolt has made the difficult decision to pause Mylo operations globally until a decision is made on whether or not we can continue our efforts.”

Widmaier appears to want to put Mylo behind him, at least for now.

“Mylo is a great product—our customers love it, I love it,” he said. “But we’re talking about millions of square meters, which is a very different challenge. And we didn’t see a way to do that…without access to the public markets.”

Widmaier wouldn’t say if the IPO cash would go toward resuscitating Mylo at some point. For now, his attention is on b-silk, which can be made with third-party fermentation partners that are already at scale, versus Mylo, which requires a dedicated facility.

In some aspects, the company is turning back to its roots. It started in 2009, after all, with its arachnid-free Microsilk, which also relies on yeast. Years later, it determined that something like a Mylo would pack a greater wallop, both commercially and environmentally speaking. Fast forward a bit and the calculus has changed once more.

“We’ve always had multiple products,” he said. “It’s just another natural progression of the business. It’s not uncommon with new technologies…to go and work on a few different things but then end up focusing on something that has got a lot of traction in the market and has a great path forward.”

In short, if the biomaterials industry is to have any kind of positive impact, it has to “deliver real products at scale,” as Widmaier put it.

“I‘m pretty convinced that the need in fashion for sustainable alternatives is real and authentic across the board,” he said. “I do think there is still a big mismatch in the understanding of what‘s required to bring deep technology solutions to the market in a way that works for everybody.”

Despite the proliferation of innovators, many of which focus on supplanting cowhide, Widmaier said that he hasn’t seen a lot of product being delivered so far, though this may or may not change. MycoWorks, one of Mylo’s biggest competitors, recently opened its first commercial plant in North Carolina. Illinois-headquartered Natural Fiber Welding, another leading contender in the ersatz leather space, wants to ramp up production of Mirum. Still, it remains to be seen if they’ll run into the same problems as Bolt Threads.

“Problem No. 1 is making this stuff,” he said.

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