Ancient Solution for New Pollution – Meet Myconaut
In Marquette, we are privileged to find ourselves surrounded by nature’s beauty. Whether in the heart of downtown or just a few minutes outside of it, there’s no shortage of breathtaking landscape and natural features to enjoy.
As we marvel in the beauty of our natural environment, we remain ever aware of the environmental concerns that loom. Quelling these environmental concerns requires daring to create solutions for them. This is exactly what Myconaut, a startup founded by Marquette locals Ryan Iacovacci and Joe Lane, is out to accomplish.
Pollutants are among the greatest of these environmental concerns, which take many forms and reach far and wide on our planet, as do their effects. The prospect of cleaning up these pollutants is a task that seems almost incomprehensibly large. And it’s only growing.
“There are approximately 50,000 more contaminated sites coming online every year as the technology is getting better and cheaper for identification,” explained Ryan, who serves as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. “We’re waking up as a species to understand how polluted we’ve left our ecosystems.”
There are many remediation solutions that exist to treat pollutants, which often take the form of chemicals and sterilizers that are applied to remediate pollutants that exist in the ground. As more and more contaminated sites are rapidly identified, there’s an ever-growing need for solutions that can be feasibly adopted at scale.
For a problem this large, Myconaut understands that the solution requires an entirely different approach. Rather than reinventing the wheel of restoration and remediation, they’re listening in to the habits nature has used to sustain itself over time.
Their solution harnesses microbiology to accelerate the natural remediation process. Myconaut accomplishes this through its Biorecurrent Selection Process™, which prescribes remediation solutions using microbiome elements such as fungi, bacteria, and archaea–offering a solution that is uniquely suited for the contaminated material and the environment in which it exists.
Myconaut examines each sample of contaminated material, applies a thorough understanding of the land or water environment, and performs extensive research and assays to prescribe a remediation solution specific to the environment with the contamination site, prescribing microbiome elements that are synergistic for that specific sample and environment. Once the unique solution is identified and validated through testing, Myconaut provides support and recommendations for implementation.
Their utilization of microbiology in their solution isn’t simply a new methodology for remediation. It represents a paradigm shift in how we discover solutions to take care of and repair our environment. Myconaut accomplishes this through a combination of intuition and science.
By intuition, Myconaut understands that Mother Nature is the best role model for resilience, and they believe it’s worth paying attention to how our environment has managed to survive and continue to thrive over existence. Our environment already offers solutions of how our water and land are able to remain vibrant. Myconaut seeks to listen to these patterns, and with extensive research and a sound scientific approach, apply them at scale to catalyze the process of restoring our environment.
Their philosophy and approach recognizes that to solve the problem of pollutants, we must cease to see ourselves as separate from nature and our environment. The solutions are already at our fingertips, and they’re worth paying attention to. “Nature’s not something out there in the forest,” Ryan said. “It’s in every city. It’s in every sewer. It’s in every wastewater treatment facility. It’s in our guts. We are nature. These things are all interwoven.”
With their approach, Myconaut has been working on bioremediation solutions for engineering firms, wastewater treatment plants, as well as farms with land affected by pollutants.
The approach Myconaut takes to remediation solutions stems from their love of being among nature, and it’s how Ryan and Joe, the company’s founders, came to work together in the first place. The pair originally met in a mushroom certification class to sell wild mushrooms, and their original venture together involved selling culinary mushrooms at the farmers market. As they got to understand the landscape of pollutants, as well as the potential for fungi and the microbiome overall to be a viable solution, they pivoted their pursuits.
As Myconaut continues to grow, Ryan takes on leadership of the business components to find clients, share about the business, what they offer, and why it matters. Joe handles lab management, leading research and testing, evaluating contaminants and developing solutions for clients that they can use for remediation. As their work together has evolved, it remains rooted in their motivation to leave things better than they found it.
“There’s a component of radical responsibility,” Ryan said. “I didn’t create the problem, but I’m just going to help clean it up anyway.”
Taking on a problem as massive as pollutants is nothing short of daunting. Yet, they’re doing it anyway. Ryan and Joe are assembling a passionate team and are building partnerships with folks ready to make a dent in the problem and are continuing to learn, grow, and chase after the greatest impact possible.
Looking ahead, they’re looking to continue their research and are planning to launch a fundraising round in September 2026 to help support their operations, expand their team, and build out their lab to expand their capabilities.
As Myconaut has evolved, Marquette has continued to be the right place for their growth to take place. The resources supporting them in the community have only validated this. “I think with the support system that has emerged for startups over the past five, six years, it has kept us here for sure,” Ryan shared.
Beyond the resources available in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, you’d be hard pressed to find a better place to discover how to integrate the natural environment into our approaches to solve problems than somewhere like Marquette, and the community that’s here.
“I think Marquette is a great place to inspire good people to do good stuff in good communities,” Ryan said.
As Myconaut has shown, even for problems that seem insurmountably large, sometimes the right solutions can be found right where we are: within our communities, within our environment–all of which lives within us.
To learn more about Myconaut, visit: https://myconaut.space/