Vitrocaulis: plant biotechnology to multiply “the beauty of nature”
Biologist Luna Aspizua specialized in in vitro plant tissue culture to build the professional project “she truly believed in”: a laboratory specializing in the micropropagation of ornamental plants that offers companies, nurseries, and producers high-quality specimens that are disease-free and have unique characteristics.
Plant biotechnology can also be a tool for building more sustainable and humane business models. This is how Luna Aspizua, founder of Vitrocaulis Plant Innovation, a startup specializing in the micropropagation of ornamental plants, sees it. The company was born out of her own life experience: “Vitrocaulis was born out of a moment of profound personal transformation,” she confesses.
That moment of transformation led Aspizua to specialize in in vitro plant tissue culture and explore a niche market where she could apply science, creativity, and business acumen. “Life is too short not to try to build something you are truly passionate about. I started studying the market, making lots of calls, and going to trade shows to talk to nursery owners and plant collectors. I identified a market opportunity and started building Vitrocaulis from scratch,“ she explains. The result is an initiative that seeks to ”multiply the beauty of nature through biotechnological innovation.”
Unique specimens
Thanks to micropropagation, Vitrocaulis offers companies, nurseries, and producers high-quality specimens that are disease-free and have unique characteristics. “Micropropagation is a technique with many benefits: it accelerates and exponentially multiplies production, allows stable genetic lines to be maintained, ensures that plants are free of viruses, bacteria, fungi, and pests, allows production regardless of the season, allows valuable varieties to be cleaned and recovered, etc.,” explains Aspizua.
The company is currently developing two lines of solutions: on the one hand, a biotechnology project for the mass production of micropropagated plants for nurseries, which will be available next year; on the other, it offers micropropagated plants as gifts for events, with innovative formats such as personalized test tubes that symbolize a commitment to sustainability and the value of “giving life.”
The project has evolved very quickly, and in just a few months, the first laboratory technique has been incorporated, with plans to hire more staff in the coming years. “It hasn’t been an easy road; it’s a very demanding and challenging project, but seeing everything we’ve achieved in just a year and a half is very motivating,” he reveals.
In terms of its objectives, Vitrocaulis has set clear goals for the coming years. In the short term, Aspizua highlights the importance of achieving commercial traction and internal financial sustainability. “This is undoubtedly the biggest challenge for any startup: moving from the laboratory to the real market,” he says. In the medium term, the company seeks to consolidate a socially and environmentally sustainable business model that offers decent working conditions, stability, and development opportunities for its team.
On the other hand, as Aspizua explains, “we are facing an infrastructure challenge. The shared facilities at BIC Bizkaia are excellent and are enabling us to develop the project, but we are reaching maximum capacity. By 2026, we will need our own facilities, also at BIC Bizkaia, to enable us to scale up production. That is why the coming months are crucial: we need to validate the business model and generate the revenue that will make this expansion viable,” he concludes.
The SPRI Group supports innovation, entrepreneurship, and intrapreneurship with comprehensive support to ensure that ideas successfully reach the market, through entrepreneurship support programs such as Aurrera, Basque Fondo, Bind 4.0, Ekintzaile, and Intraemprendimiento.
