Strong by Form will show its ultralight engineered wood at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

Even before a building receives its first occupant, it has accrued a steep carbon debt. Globally, building materials and construction contribute 11% of global carbon emissions, According to To the World Green Building Council.

Experimentation with high-rise wooden buildings has begun in some places and they have recently reached new heights, wooden buildings will not replace skyscrapers anytime soon. But one Chilean startup thinks there’s still room to find wood.

“We’re more into hybrid buildings,” said Andres Mitnik, co-founder and CEO Strong by formTechCrunch said. His company has developed a new engineered wood product that can replace concrete and steel in structural floors, allowing architects to design lighter, less carbon intensive buildings. The organization is a Startup battlefield The top 20 are finalized and presented TechCrunch disruptsWhich runs this week in San Francisco.

The secret lies in how those floor plates are made. “We think we can shape wood in a way that no one has done before,” he said.

Strong by Form has designed a structural floor piece that can span longer distances than existing engineered wood, replacing steel or concrete. At the same time, the product is lighter than the three.

On the outside, builders will see something familiar. “When a contractor gets it, they see a CLT [cross-laminated timber] slab,” says Mitnick. “All the connections, the construction system, all the processes on site are just as if you were using CLT, so there’s no need to learn anything new.”

But inside, instead of more solid wood, like you’d find in a CLT, the structure is filled with cavities. Wood shavings are pressed into a corrugated board optimized to carry heavy loads.

Corrugated panel looks like oriented strand board, or OSB, which is common on job sites. But Strong Buy Form has developed a software and a manufacturing technique to ensure the shape and alignment of wood flakes are held together by adhesive binders. “It’s a next-generation OSB, if you want to think about it that way,” Mitnick said.

Using the natural form and strength of wood, Strong by Form has created a wooden structural floor that currently spans 10 meters (about 33 feet). Most CLT floors can only span half that distance.

Not all of this technology is free, but Mitnick says the higher cost of its engineered wood product can be offset by its lighter weight.

“The idea is to make something that’s so light that it allows you to do overall optimization of the structure,” he said. Lighter floors mean less steel and concrete in the frame, which lowers the overall cost of the building. “With these additional savings, we were able to achieve price parity with concrete.”

Strong by Form is testing its 10-meter panel, ensuring it meets the fire and load ratings required by structural engineers.

Next, it will raise a Series A round targeting $10 million to build a pilot plant to manufacture the first pieces for commercial deployment.

Meanwhile, Strong by Form has also produced a three-millimeter-thick panel intended for finish rather than structural duty. The startup is working with train manufacturers to use its subtly undulating panels inside trains, where they can soften the aesthetics of train car walls and ceilings while reducing their mass.

“It allowed us to fund all the research and development [research and development] The floor has to be done, which is what we really want to scale, because that’s where the impact is,” Mitnick said.

If you want to learn more about Strong Buy Form from the company — as well as check out dozens of others, listen to their pitches and listen to guest speakers on four different stages — join us this week at Disrupt in San Francisco. Learn more here.