Interview with Allie Sutton & Phyllis Levine of Moonlight Technologies on the Origin of the Company

Hello and welcome to this episode of Conscious Design. I'm your host, Ian Peterman, and author of the book Conscious Design. And I'm here today with Allie and Phyllis. They're the co-founders of Tech Moonlight Technologies, and they have been developing 100% natural, sustainable, and carbon-negative technologies for fabrics, which is exciting because we need that. There's so many bad ones out there. So welcome to the show, both of you.

Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

Awesome. Well, I'd first like to have you guys start off with telling a little bit of the story of how did you get started? What, what drove you to decide, well, let's take on developing this technology and, and finding some better, better tech for fabric.

Awesome, for sure, for sure. So we, um, we actually started this, this company, um, and, and Dr. Phyllis and I came together actually through COVID because when COVID hit, we were working towards, um, finding a way to create better technologies to protect people's lives, right? And, you know, the virus is spreading very quickly and in many different ways. And Phyllis and I, Dr. Phyllis and I, got connected with the passion of really introducing different technologies like an antimicrobial technology across a wide range of different products to, um, to stop the spread of, you know, viruses and bacteria, etc. So that was really the origin story behind and the reasons behind why we started.

Right, and you guys have expanded. You have several technologies that you are now have out there and are working on. Can you talk a little bit like how you've grown? Obviously virus and bacterial protection, that was your starting point, but now you've really grown out from there to replace some really, really not good applications out there that exist right now.

Yeah, so we— that's right. I mean, we started with the idea of creating and introducing a plant-based antimicrobial into the market, which is one of our technologies. And then we teamed up with a team of botanical scientists that have been developing these plant-based technologies, and we're really looking for a partner to help scale it and launch these technologies across the world. So aside from offering a plant-based antimicrobial, that's for fabrics. Our technologies aren't only for fabrics, just to make one correction there, for fabrics, hard products, surfaces, air. So we have an antimicrobial, we have a plant-based bug repellent for fabrics and hard products that's permethrin-free. We have a completely plant— 100% plant-based odor eliminator for fabrics. We have one of our newest technologies, which is a self-cleaning fabric technology called Phase Clean, where it can be applied to any fabric type and basically makes that fabric self-cleaning, so rarely needs to be washed. And then we have a full range of natural and plant-based dyes. As you may know, synthetic dyes are one of the, one of the biggest challenges to the environment from our industry. So we have a full range of non-toxic, biodegradable, plant-based dyes.

Yeah, and so diving into the cleaning one, because that's— we talked a little bit Initially, like, that's a huge water consumption, right? We spend so much water in cleaning things because they do— the regular fabric gets, gets so dirty. Kind of when you, when you started working on this technology, what are the things that— how did you go about developing it? And how, how do you have now a product that's natural? Because there's other ones, there's other ones that claim, you know, something like that, but they're not, they're not exactly nice on the environment.

So for us, it was about really thinking through the use, the different use cases in the market, and how some of the different technologies that we can pull together and, and create this overarching technology that can do a lot of things within one. And that's, that's what SpaceClean is. It's about It's about understanding why products need to be washed, deeply understanding that, and then creating solutions for the consumer so that the products— for example, this t-shirt or a towel— um, can never need to be washed. Like, for example, one of, one of my colleagues uses our towel and she uses it almost every day, and it's been about 3 months and she hasn't washed it one time. So it's just, it's about bringing these technologies together and working them and innovating on them to create better technologies once we learn from customers as they're using the products what the feedback is. Right.

And for people that don't know what people use today, right, that exists, the average technology, if you want insect-proof or you want any of these others, what are the negatives that you guys are being able to replace with these plant-based technologies that makes it so much better?

Yeah, so I mean, each one of these technologies has its own competition, I guess, that are in the less— I should say less sustainable world. The natural dyes obviously competes with synthetic dyes. And there are some drawbacks to natural dyes. We don't have any dark, dark, dark colors, you know, the black. And a lot of product, like my shirt, needs to be black. But we have a full range of lighter colors. We have a navy and whatnot. But we compete with synthetic dyes there. And a lot of companies are coming to us looking to become more sustainable, or many times customers come to us because their customers, the retailers, are coming to them asking them to become more sustainable, and they need more sustainable solutions. So that's on the natural dyes. On the antimicrobial, many antimicrobials in the market are metal-based. There are a number of challenges with metal-based antimicrobials. Some of them leach into the environment, which cause a lot of issues. There are some countries that are starting to ban metal-based fabrics because of some of those challenges. I mean, in terms of insect repellency, You know, one of the predominant forms of insect repellency today is used using a chemical called permethrin, and that has its whole set of issues associated with permethrin. And our technology is completely permethrin-free. So if you're in the bug repellent world, many, many customers have been coming to us saying, we've been looking for a permethrin-free technology for years, and we're happy to finally— So we're excited about that.

That's amazing. Are you finding— because you mentioned a couple different directions of how it's being— people are being influenced to even look for these technologies, both, you know, laws that are banning metal, metal versions, or even kind of the more consumer-driven of a retailer going, hey, our customers want plant-based, they want organic, they want sustainable. What are you seeing when you're looking at all this? Is there a general— is it predominantly one area or another, or is there a whole set of driving factors that are pushing all of this to become more, you know, something that people actually want to do?

Yeah, it's a great question. And, um, the truth of the matter is we service so many different markets, everything from apparel and accessories, home, baby, pet, um, all the way to air filtration, um, and outside of the consumer space. So every market has its own nuances, and within every market there's customers that are coming to us because inherently they want to become more sustainable, right? They have an initiative in turn to become more sustainable. We less so that their customer is demanding it and more so that they just don't want to pollute as much.

Got it.

And other times it's that customers are saying, listen, you know, we want to become more sustainable. It may not be such a big initiative internally, but now our customers are demanding it from us, whether they're customers, retailer, or the end consumer. And now we need to become more sustainable because our customer is expecting that and we want to, we want to have shared value with that customer. To, um, to offer them products that, that they would want to wear or, or use or buy.

And, and when you're developing these, you know, one thing that people will often point out, well, is it as good as what's out there already? And like you mentioned, like the dyes, there's, you know, there's certain colors that it's just not really possible to do. Like black is very Very hard to do naturally. Is there any limitations or benefits of the other technologies that you're working on that either they're, you know, may not be as good in one area but far better in another, that kind of people that are looking at this might be able to do a comparison and see how, how it might affect their products? Sure.

I think that the, on the intercompellency, actually, um, ours performs Many cases better than the—

Amazing.

Yeah, than what's out there today. Um, on the same thing on the odor eliminator side, on the antimicrobial, there is a market of people that need kill times of, let's say, viruses and bacteria within, you know, 30 seconds. And our antimicrobial is not as fast acting, um, as it relates to that particular market. Most of the markets that we service don't need a virus to be killed in, you know, 10 seconds. So that's not, that's not a problem, as much of a problem, or bacteria to be killed. But there it has some of that limitations there as well. But again, we, we try and focus on markets where the value-add from our technologies are incremental, and, you know, they don't, they don't care as much about some of the drawbacks because it's not— those aren't as important Got it.

And are you finding— because this is something I've talked to other people about, is, right, how, how people go about marketing sustainable things. And a lot of people have been, it's green, it's green, it's green, and it's not really sold well because they don't talk about how well it performs. When you guys are, are talking with people, is that— is it a performance? Because like you said, the insect one performs better. Are some people coming to you because you're like, hey, this works better, or is it predominantly more of the draw of let's have an eco-friendly product and then if it happens to be better, great?

That's another great question. It's actually both. Some customers come to us because they're looking for eco-friendly. Sometimes customers come to us because they're just looking for general insect repellent. So it's, it's, and then it just happens to work really, really well. All of our technologies have a tremendous amount of data associated with them, and we continue to produce more and more data as we do different tests against different things or different scenarios. But it's— it is a little bit of both. It's— it's a lot of times it's, hey, we want something eco-friendly, but other times it's we just want something that works really well, and your technologies work really well. Like, the bug repellent works better in many cases. Right.

Well, it's good, it's good to see that it's more of a mix now because it's— it means that your, your technology is working really well, but people are also really open. It seems that industry is far more open to sustainable products and are even have it on their radar than, you know, 5 years ago even, uh, which is—

That's very true.

Incredible, incredible to see. Are you guys looking long term? We'll look long term really quickly. Are there any other areas that you guys— because there's a lot, and I know you work on hard goods as well, but there's a lot of obviously fabrics that use these kinds of coatings. Are there other— This feels like you've covered pretty good base right here of what most fabric would use. Is there anything else that you're looking at going That's a really terrible product.

We're—

we need to replace that as well to help the fabric. Fashion is such a huge, huge world in what we do to the fabrics.

We are— there's a number of areas that we're looking at. Um, we, we don't like to talk about them publicly until they're publicly available, or—

Of course.

Some of these technologies we're working with the regulatory bodies to get the necessary approvals for them. But there are a few areas that we're focusing on in terms of how can we make a better version of this? This is harmful to the environment. This can be better, whether for the consumer or whatnot. So there are some areas and hopefully we'll announce them when they're ready. But the truth of the matter is right now there's so much opportunity with the technologies that we have. We're just trying to keep our heads above water with the customers that we're dealing with.

Yeah, I mean, with, you know, 5 technologies, it's quite a, quite a bit to use, and I feel like you cover— you've covered the, at least the ones that I would think of normally as something that you would apply to a material. Like, that's a pretty good, pretty good base that you can impact the industry. Are you guys seeing other companies? Like, are you seeing— is this a growing space where other companies are going Hey, wow, look at Moonlight, they've figured out some good technology. Are you starting to see copycat companies start to try to follow through, or are you still pretty, pretty isolated in having, having developed it?

So, um, no, I think the entire industry is thinking about sustainability. So, you know, many companies are trying to develop better technologies using better ingredients. But our technologies and the team that we partner with have been developing these technologies for close to a decade. So it's by no means easy to accomplish this feat. And we're excited to have that large step ahead in many cases to bring these technologies to market. And it's all patented or patent pending. So that's, you know, we're excited about the competitive advantage that we really bring.

Hey, it's Ian here. So glad you're enjoying this episode of Conscious Design. If you want the full scoop on Conscious Design, what it is, how we do it, how you can do it, then check out our book. We wrote it so creative entrepreneurs like you can code social and environmental responsibility right into your brand's DNA. You can download the first chapter for free. Link is in the description. Enjoy the rest of the episode. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share. That's amazing. So you mentioned this— some of this technology has been developing for a decade. When did you step guys step in to really start building out? Because there's, there's a huge difference between somebody in a lab making some product, testing it out, and let's actually commercialize this and get it in a real market and real products. Kind of how, how did that transition happen and how long did it take?

Yeah, we, we started bringing this to market about 6 months ago, um, so very, very recent. And that was really the start of conversations with customers about working together on the regulatory end or interest in a particular technology. And actually, I'd love for Dr. Levy maybe just to give her a quick background on her and how her interest in her and what her background is, because I think it really relates well to all the conversations we're having.

Yes, please do.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. It actually does touch on some of the points that you recently brought up. I actually began my career at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, majoring in materials science and engineering. After that, I went on to medical school. I did a residency in gynecologic and obstetrics and then a fellowship in gynecologic oncology. As I began to practice in the world as a cancer surgeon, there were certain things I noticed that became very frustrating to me. Sometimes, let's say, I would spend 6, 8, 10 hours sometimes doing amazing surgery on a patient. I really felt like I had done something great, that I really either extended their life or totally saved their life. And then all of a sudden, 2 days down the line, What happens? They picked up some kind of hospital-acquired infection, something that they didn't come in the hospital with. They now had a new problem that I had to deal with. At the time, people were really focused mostly on keeping things clean by cleaning hard surfaces, doctors washing their hands. But what began to become apparent was that the soft surfaces, the textiles in the hospital environment, also were vectors for transmission of all kinds of infections. So I realized if I could get involved with that, combining my background, always interested in innovative material technologies, combining that with health, that's basically what led me in that direction. As you mentioned before, there were other technologies out there— metals, quads. I actually began working in some of those industries early on because also, as you mentioned, the goal always has to be, if you're putting things on the market, it has to be good. It has to be the best there. You don't want to compromise efficacy ever based on your products. So early on, the metals were great, uh, but then I began to realize, is there something better that we can use? Because everything in healthcare is, is usually a balance between risk and benefit. We make those decisions every day in medicine. So the same concepts really apply to textiles. If we could achieve this, the same level of benefit with something that was healthier, that always made sense to me. The plant-based technologies that people were working on early on, one of the main problems that they encountered was durability. Like, you could get them on the textiles, they would work, but the second you started washing them, many of them began to wash out.

Right.

So like everything else in the world, it's timing. It took, you know, several years to develop the right delivery systems. And what's also innovative about our technologies are that The delivery system we use is also 100% plant-based. So we have delivery system plant-based, we have actives that are plant-based. So then when in balance, I realized, wow, that's a win-win situation. Now we could use something that's better for the environment and at the same time still can achieve efficacy. And as you said, also testing is very important. We stick to the highest standards of testing. whatever testing is the standard in the market, we make sure that we are achieving results that we can be proud of introducing into the market. So that's kind of where I came from and my thought process of how to get better things into the market. Because just even as a physician, it's great to try to create healthy people, but who wants to put healthy people into an environment that's not as healthy as it could be?

Right.

So our technologies being healthier for the environment, we protect plants, we protect animals, we protect aquatic organisms. We don't contaminate things because people have to also remember, if you're in an environment, even if you eat a plant that's been contaminated or you eat a fish that came from the ocean that's contaminated with a bad technology, that's affecting the people who are using the end products of water, food. We all need those type of things.

Right.

The other concern also as a physician has been, yeah, we all think about ourselves sometimes, what's best for us. But when it comes to the textile industry, we also really have to think about the workers. All these people that work in these factories every day that are exposed to all these toxins, they have all kinds of health problems. that sometimes even go as far as developing terminal illnesses like cancer. So having something that may also protect the workers as well as the people using the end products, as well as the water, as well as fish, birds, animals, that just seemed like a win-win situation to me.

Yeah, it's amazing. And that's, that's something that, you know, as not everyone really thinks about the entire path of a product. Like you said, it's not just the end user, it's the person who makes it, it's the person who handles it to ship it, it's the community wherever it's being manufactured. If there's any kind of, you know, manufacturing runoff, right?

Right.

You all start to realize how much it impacts down to the food system, right? If you're like, I don't even use the product, but I ate a fish that is from near the factory. Well, you are, you are impacted by that product, whether you bought it or not. And it's, it's great. It's amazing how more and more and more people are starting to think about those impacts in creating a product. And they go, oh, well, let's, like you said, let's make something that's good for everyone that's impacted by it.

As many people as possible.

Exactly.

But you don't want to also compromise standards because, you know, as Ali also mentioned, for healthcare, we're still working on making a better product. We keep thinking about all the actives that we could use because we want our data to be comparable to the best data out there if we're going to use it in a healthcare environment. So that, as you said before, also asked, are we working on other things? Yes. That is one thing, taking technology that we have now that we think is, you know, very innovative, very creative, works incredibly well, but trying to take it up a slightly higher level so we also will have the best technology that can be introduced into all healthcare settings.

Yeah, which is important. It's one of the things that, like, a lot of green products that I've looked at, they're just not Up to the standard.

Yes, they don't work.

They're still like, yeah, it's biodegradable, it's all this, which is great, but if it doesn't do the job, it doesn't really matter. And it's, it's somebody— I was talking to somebody else about, you know, the perfect, the perfect product isn't, isn't the one that's necessarily perfectly biodegradable. And it's, if no one buys it, no one uses it, um, Your, your perfectly green product is actually a complete waste and the opposite of sustainable because you're going to put a whole bunch of time and effort and money, make it, and then it's just going to sit there. And that, that doesn't help anything. That doesn't improve anything.

Yeah, that's awesome.

So it's, it's great to see you guys are able to reach those standards, right? You're, you're developing stuff that works, technology that actually does what it needs to, to compete, and it happens to be way more eco-friendly. It happens to be so much better, which is great. Kudos to you guys in doing this. Are you guys— it took you about 10 years to develop, so is that— are you able to start shortening? Like, is it— you have 5 technologies now, so is that something you're able to kind of— work on each other, or are they just totally so separate that each, each is its own, own complete separate path?

Well, so we in particular didn't develop these, our partners did. But they, they, these technologies all can be combined together, or they can be operated separately, and we work on improving each of them either in concert together or separate. So it's— we're, we're a company built on innovation, so we need to continue to innovate and evolve as a business. So hopefully over the next few years, our technologies get better and better, and we offer new and, and new and different technologies to the market.

Right. And our—

I'm sorry, our base technology that we use for delivery system and inerts, that's fairly well established now. So we're just talking really about adding different actives that may have different functionality over time. What also, you know, what you referenced before about not always having to be perfect, if it at least is being incrementally better in the world, our technologies, even though they're definitely great for natural fibers and natural textiles, they also can be applied to synthetics. So even though, you know, obviously this problem with synthetics, people are working on getting better at the synthetic textiles. But in the interim, we at least can make synthetics at least better in terms of the environment, in terms of, you know, eco-impact right now. So that also is a step in the right direction that we can be applied to both natural fabrics as well as synthetic fabrics.

Yeah, that's a really good point too. And I forget the name of the gentleman I was interviewing, but they were developing a new technology to bring hydrogen to airplanes. But they're like, well, it's going to take so long for us to develop it. We need intermediary steps, something that will work without entirely redoing it. If you were to stop the fashion industry today, And replace— be like, all right, now you can only use eco-friendly products or you don't get to make anything. It would be detrimental. It would kill things and you wouldn't be able to make these steps. So I think it's a great thing that you're pointing out is like, you can use this with any material that's out there. You can make those incremental steps to improve it.

Yeah.

Absolutely. That's our goal.

Awesome. Well, before we wrap up, I want to give a chance if there's anything else you guys want to share, if there's anything you're, you know, working on and can talk about. You know, I totally understand the R&D secrecy. I work in that world. So, but is there anything else you guys want to share with anyone who's listening, wants to partner with you guys, work with you guys?

No, I think that, you know, we appreciate being able to be on the podcast. It's amazing what you do. Thank you. Thank you for bringing all of your ideas and thoughts and ideas and thoughts of your guests to the world. We're excited to be a part of it, and we're excited to be bringing these sustainable technologies to market. And if there are any companies that are listening to this podcast that are looking to grow in their sustainability, making their products more sustainable, um, and whether it's because inherently they're looking to become more sustainable because their customers are really asking for them, we'd be happy to work with them on creating solutions and that really satisfy the needs of both their business and their customers.

Amazing. And where— website, like, where would be the best way to find you guys?

So they could— our website is moonlight Tech.co, not .com, .co. moonlighttech.co. They can, uh, go to our website. They can contact me, allie@moonlighttech.co. That's allie@moonlighttech.co. And I'm happy to chat with them.

Amazing. And we'll make sure for anyone listening or watching, we'll put that in the description as well, so it'll be easy to find you guys and just click through. Well, I really appreciate both of you taking the time to share. You guys have really amazing technology. I'm excited to see what else you guys are cooking and working on and, uh, see when it comes out.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you. Have a good one.

Thank you. You too. Bye-bye.