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Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) for Biotech, Food-Tech & Sustainable Scale-Up

At Sustech Innovation, we help biotech, food-tech, precision fermentation, and sustainable manufacturing startups translate technical innovation into commercial clarity through structured Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA).

A TEA connects engineering reality with financial logic, turning process development into disciplined industrial decisions.

It is not just a cost model.

It is a scale-up decision framework.

We support clients across:

  • United States

  • United Kingdom

  • Europe

  • Latin America

  • Middle East

  • Asia

A Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) evaluates whether a technology can be produced:

  • At commercial scale

  • At competitive cost

  • With defensible capital requirements

  • With realistic margins

It links:

  • Process design

  • Capital expenditure (CAPEX)

  • Operating expenditure (OPEX)

  • Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)

  • Economies of scale

A well-timed TEA reduces risk before major scale-up, pilot, or investment decisions are made.

Unlike traditional feasibility studies built for large corporations, our approach is designed specifically for early-stage startups operating with:

  • Limited data

  • Limited capital

  • Active fundraising timelines

The ScaleUpReady™ framework ensures that techno-economic analysis is:

  • Decision-driven

  • Stage-appropriate

  • Capital-aware

  • Transparent in assumptions

Instead of asking:  ​“Can we model everything?”

We ask:  “What level of techno-economic clarity do we need right now?”

Every structured TEA follows a disciplined progression:

  1. Define the real decision

  2. Translate laboratory processes into industrial design

  3. Quantify capital and operating costs

  4. Reveal unexpected economic constraints

  5. Convert insight into scale-up strategy

This staged methodology prevents premature lock-in and ensures industrial decisions are tested before capital is committed.

Many startups struggle with timing.

Run a TEA too early, and the data may be insufficient.


Run it too late, and expensive decisions may already be embedded in the roadmap.

The ScaleUpReady™ TEA Readiness Call exists to answer one question:

Is a TEA useful for you right now?

It is a structured diagnostic conversation designed to determine:

  • If you are ready

  • What decisions a TEA would support

  • What data may still be missing

  • Whether a staged approach makes more sense

Who This Is For

Our techno-economic analysis services support:

  • Biotech startups

  • Precision fermentation companies

  • Alternative protein ventures

  • Biomaterials innovators

  • Sustainable chemical and manufacturing teams

Especially those:

  • Preparing for Seed or Series A

  • Defining pilot or first commercial scale

  • Evaluating processing pathways

  • Stress-testing capital requirements

Industrial scale-up is not just a technical challenge.


It is an economic one.

Structured techno-economic analysis ensures that scale decisions are informed, not assumed.

This is how teams become ScaleUpReady™.

🚀 Explore Further

→ The ScaleUpReady™ Framework
Understand decision-driven framework designed for early-stage biotech and food-tech scale-up.

→ The 5 Stages of a Techno-Economic Analysis
See how we translate laboratory processes into structured industrial and financial models.

 

→ TEA Readiness Call
Determine whether now is the right time to run a TEA — and what level of clarity your project needs.

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