Jonathan Levine ’11SEAS ’04CC
Co-founder & CEO
Folia Materials
As the CEO and co-founder of Folia Materials, I have led Folia from an idea to a business: from my living room to industrial production and sales. We have invented a process that utilizes standard paper mills as the world’s largest nanofactories to make nano-functionalized paper at the low-cost and large-scale manufacturing of paper. Our first product is the Folia Filter, a paper water filter packaged as a sachet that can produce 20L of safe, germ-free water for only 20 cents. It is the world’s first water filter that costs pennies and not dollars. My vision is for the Folia Filter to be sold as a sachet through mom and pop kiosks in
developing countries as a mass-market staple next to soaps, snacks, and SIM cards. I am an accidental tech / social entrepreneur, having been an academic scientist with 18 publications in my past life. Our water filters went viral as the Drinkable Book in 2015 leading to Folia Water. As CEO I’m involved in all aspects of the business:
-Paper: manufacturing has been scaled from R&D to large scale, various patents filed
-Consumer product: design, sourcing, toll manufacturing, logistics, customs, ops
-Consumer research: consumer shopping and kitchen journey, human centered product design, value prop testing, consumer marketing
-Marketing: GTM, consumer advertising and sales testing, retail trade, advertising/communications -Sales: consumer sales, enterprise sales, investors
-Management: admin, HR, finance…