This Luxury Car Brand Just Made the Smartest Investment in Animal-Free Leather | PLANT CEO #110

About this episode

In this episode, we chat with Stephanie Downs, CEO and co-founder of Uncaged Innovations, who is revolutionising the leather industry with her groundbreaking grain-based leather alternatives. Stephanie shares her remarkable 26-year entrepreneurial journey, from internet marketing to biomaterials innovation, revealing how her company became the first to utilise grain proteins and waste byproducts to create "Elevate" - an animal-free leather alternative that mimics the properties of animal collagen. She announces their major partnership with Jaguar to bring plant-based leather to automotive interiors and discusses how they've achieved full-scale production without building their own factory.The conversation explores the challenges of transitioning consumers away from traditional leather (which Stephanie describes as "dead skin treated with toxic chemicals and coated in plastic") and tackles the $85 billion leather market head-on. Stephanie discusses their expansion into footwear, exotic skin alternatives through "Elevate 3D," and reveals upcoming announcements with luxury fashion brands and additional automotive partnerships. With products already available through their collective o