The implementation of the project is very intensive, requiring not only deep interdisciplinary knowledge and experience, but also a change in attitude and personal transformation, shifting thinking from a laboratory scale to a production scale, from a scientist's perspective to that of an entrepreneur.
Dr Tatjana Paulauskienė, professor and researcher at Klaipėda University in Lithuania, has spent her career tackling one of the ocean's most persistent threats: pollution. Living on the shores of the Baltic Sea, where waters renew at only around 3% a year, she has seen first-hand how pollution can accumulate rather than disperse. Moreover, as the Baltic is one of Europe's busiest shipping routes – with oil among its main cargoes – the risk of a spill is never far away. Convinced that only a smart innovation could help restore both the environment and the local economy at once, she and fellow scientist Dr Marija Kataržytė founded Inobiostar in 2020, as a spin-off from Klaipėda University
A Biotechnology Born in the Baltic
Inobiostar's flagship product, InnoAerogel, is a super-absorbent material derived from recycled paper waste, embedded with oil-degrading microorganisms sourced directly from the Baltic Sea. Synergy is the key: the material absorbs oil but not water, while the microorganisms, naturally occurring in the sea, biodegrade it from within, leaving no saturated waste to dispose of. InnoAerogel is twice as light and twice as effective as conventional sorbents, fully biodegradable, and reusable up to five times.
The technology is patented in Europe and has been field-tested at the Port of Klaipėda with Lithuania's Ministry of Environment. For Paulauskienė, getting this far has meant learning to see the project through an entrepreneur's eyes as well as a scientist's, carrying it through the full cycle from idea to deployment. Every milestone matters to her, and celebrating each step along the way, she looks ahead to a Baltic Sea fully restored within two decades — "connecting regions and ensuring the well-being of people," as she puts it.
Riding EU Support
EU support has been central to Inobiostar's growth. In 2023 the company received the WomenTechEU award, recognising it as a promising women-led deep tech startup, and joined the BlueInvest Readiness Assistance programme for tailored coaching. In 2024, it secured a €2.3 million grant from the European Innovation Council Accelerator under Horizon Europe, one of the EU's most competitive deep tech funding instruments.
The company has since joined WE-RISE, supporting women-led startups in GreenTech, AgriTech and ClimateTech, and the BlueInvest Fundraising Assistance programme in 2025 — each layering expertise, visibility and capital onto a woman-led innovation, grown from a Baltic lab and now competing to reshape how Europe fights oil pollution.
As a chemical and environmental engineer with more than twenty years of experience, Paulauskienė is now looking ahead to the installation and launch of Inobiostar's first pilot production line for the aerogel, a milestone that will bring five years of intensive work full circle.
Contact information
Website: https://inobiostar.com/
LinkedIn: Inobiostar: Overview | LinkedIn
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Inobiostar
Video: How do visionary ideas transform into reality?
This project has received funding from
- WomenTechEU (2023)
- BlueInvest Readiness Assistance
- EIC Accelerator
- WE-RISE
- BlueInvest Fundraising Assistance (2025)
Sources: