Victoria-based Shift Technologies this month awarded its 2026 Shift Impact Grant Recipient to PhyCo Technologies.
Shift, which last year launched a completely customizable browsing experience, awarded its second annual $25,000 Impact Grant to PhyCo, a marine biotech company turning seaweed into a home-compostable, earth-digestible plastic alternative.
Founded in 2022 by marine biologist Ranah Chavoshi and biotechnologist Stacey Goldberg, PhyCo was launched following an eye-opening scuba-diving trip to Malaysia, which revealed severe plastic pollution along the coastline.
This discovery eventually led Chavoshi to learn more about plastics pollution across the supply chain.
“Most people think food-related plastic starts at the grocery store, but much of it is used on farms long before food reaches the shelf,” says Chavoshi.
Enzyme technology and green chemistry break invasive seaweed down into extracts that are compounded into pellets and converted into a finished bio-plastic capable of fully degrading on its own.
The product is marketed as an alternative to traditional plastic mulch films, which cover 25 million acres of farmland worldwide, contributing nearly seven million tonnes of non-biodegradable material into the soil every year.
The global commercial seaweed market, valued at $70B in 2025, is meanwhile projected to double by 2035.
“Ranah and Stacey are tackling a massive environmental problem that most of us never see,” explains Neil Henderson, CEO of Shift. “The Shift Impact Grant is designed to give founders the flexibility to put funding where it can make the greatest difference.”
“For PhyCo, that means introducing a promising seaweed-based plastic alternative to the industries that need it,” he remarked.
In recent years, PhyCo has earned more than a dozen awards and grants, including recognition from Ocean Wise, BMO’s Generation Regen Challenge, and the Beaver’s Den People’s Choice Award; the firm also joined The Blue Action Canada Accelerator.
“We started PhyCo to develop a soil-biodegradable, non-toxic and petroleum-free alternative from seaweed,” says Chavoshi. “The Shift Impact Grant will help us move that work beyond the lab and get a practical, compostable solution closer to the farmers who need it.”
PhyCo is working on a production-scale pilot in Portugal. Within Canada, Nova Scotia’s Ecology Action Centre, is growing kelp for PhyCo through a dedicated farming hub.
Last year’s Shift grant went to FireSwarm Solutions, a 2025 Startup of the Year Finalist and 2026 startup-to-watch.
Photo from Shift, taken by Georgia Esporlas
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