Afternoon Tea with KisStartup – When Biotechnology Touches Fashion: The Journey of TômTex
TômTex is becoming one of the most fascinating examples of how biotechnology and the circular economy can redefine the material landscape for the fashion industry. Born from a very “everyday” question — how far can shrimp shells, crab shells, coffee grounds, and fungi go in the global value chain — TômTex has built an ambitious business model: transforming agro-marine by-products into sustainable bio-based “leather,” targeting high-end fashion, interior design, and premium packaging markets.
Business Model: From Waste to High-Value Materials
Instead of investing in new raw-material farms or costly lab-grown cultivation, TômTex starts with the massive waste streams of seafood and agriculture. Shrimp shells, crab shells, coffee grounds, and fungal by-products — typically considered environmental treatment costs for businesses — are “upcycled” into inputs for biotechnology. Low cost, stable supply, and the added benefit of waste reduction form the first layer of value.
The core lies in TômTex’s proprietary green biochemical technology: chitosan extracted from shrimp shells is processed and combined with bio-based binders and natural pigments — with no plastics and no toxic solvents. The result is a material that can be printed, embossed, and pressed into various structures, mimicking cow leather, suede, or even PVC-like surfaces while remaining fully bio-based and biodegradable. Production costs are designed to approximate — or undercut — conventional cow leather, a crucial condition for mass commercialization.
In terms of market strategy, TômTex adopts a B2B model: selling materials to fashion, interior, automotive, and premium-packaging brands, while co-creating designs with influential designers and labels. Appearing on runways, at fashion weeks, and in experimental product lines of major brands not only generates initial revenue but, more importantly, builds “social proof” that this new material is beautiful, durable, and credible enough for the premium segment. Once trust is established, the logical next step is expansion into more affordable product lines and becoming a platform-level material supplier for OEM manufacturers.
The model also opens up a “Vietnam-rooted, globally scaled” pathway: placing R&D near fashion hubs and manufacturing technology centers while gradually shifting production back to Vietnam to leverage abundant shrimp, coffee, and fungal by-products — forming a closed-loop value chain from surimi plants, shrimp-processing factories, and coffee roasters to bio-material manufacturing and fashion–interior ecosystems.
Competitive Advantages and Global Comparison
In the landscape of next-generation bio-leather startups, TômTex stands alongside MycoWorks, Bolt Threads, and Desserto — but follows a different path. Many competitors invest heavily in mycelium cultivation or synthetic spider-silk proteins in tightly controlled environments — which ensures consistency but requires high capital and operating costs. Desserto uses cactus — strong in sustainable agriculture and “green” branding — but still faces technical challenges in processing, preservation, and additives for durability.
TômTex avoids the route of “new farming” or “new cultivation” and instead builds on existing waste streams. If executed well, this model creates a cost advantage that is difficult to replicate: near-zero raw material cost, potentially even “negative cost” if seafood companies treat it as waste-processing service. Chitosan processing, formulation, and structural engineering form the hard-to-copy technological core, especially once protected by IP and refined through long-term experimentation. Strategic partnerships with seafood enterprises, such as VNF, add another “moat” in the supply chain: whoever controls stable, pre-processed waste streams gains an edge in both price and quality.
However, from a critical perspective, TômTex still faces challenges: ensuring industrial-scale consistency; meeting strict standards for mechanical strength, moisture resistance, mold resistance, and colorfastness required by fashion and automotive sectors; and avoiding “greenwashing” skepticism unless product lifecycle and end-of-life biodegradability are clearly demonstrated. Competition in the vegan-leather space is intensifying, requiring continuous innovation to avoid being leapfrogged by newer technologies.
Opportunities for Biotechnology and Fashion Materials in Vietnam
If TômTex is seen as an “open case study,” the crucial question for Vietnam is: how can Vietnam move beyond supplying shrimp shells and coffee grounds to becoming an R&D and manufacturing hub for bio-materials in the global fashion supply chain?
Vietnam possesses a rare combination of assets: among the world’s top exporters of shrimp, pangasius, and coffee; a major global manufacturing base for textiles, apparel, and footwear; a network of universities and research institutes in biotechnology, biochemistry, and materials; and increasing pressure from international brands’ emission-reduction and ESG commitments. In other words, Vietnam has both the motivation and the resources.
Yet the linkages between labs, factories, and fashion brands remain weak. Many biotech research projects stop at academic publications, while textile and footwear firms mainly operate as OEMs dependent on imported materials. TômTex suggests a new model: bio-material startups positioned at the center, speaking “the language of all three sides” — understanding biological mechanisms, material technical requirements, and the aesthetic and business needs of designers and brands.
If Vietnam could build multiple “new-generation TômTex,” but with a broader range of raw materials — from shrimp and crab shells to coffee husks, cashew shells, banana trunks, coconut fibers, durian husks — the country could turn agricultural waste pressure into a national competitive advantage in green materials. This requires not only technology but also ecosystem and policy: encouraging collaborative experiments between startups, research institutes, and seafood companies; designing benefit-sharing mechanisms across the value chain; and supporting IP protection and international standard testing for new materials.
Strategic Potential for a Sustainable Strength
From a strategic perspective, TômTex presents an intriguing proposition: Vietnam can move up the global value chain not only by upgrading manufacturing capability but also by owning the next generation of foundational materials for the fashion and interior industries. If Vietnam can combine three pillars — green biotechnology, abundant agro-marine by-products, and existing fashion-design–manufacturing capabilities — the country could position itself as a regional “bio-fashion material hub.”
This requires long-term thinking: treating waste as a strategic asset; treating bio-material startups as key components of a sustainable fashion-industry strategy; and treating pioneers like TômTex as partners for learning, transfer, and co-creation — not merely as buyers of raw materials. If achieved, the journey “from shrimp shells to the fashion runway” would not only be the inspiring story of a single startup but also a story of national value-chain upgrading.
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Authors: Long Nam Pham (ABIVIN Corporation) , Dang Tuan Minh Nguyen (KisStartup Innovation Consulting, Coaching, Mentoring), Minh Tuan Phung (Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research Group, Faculty of Business Administration, Ton Duc Thang University)