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About Owlfly LLC
Owlfly LLC is a for-profit company based in Frenchtown, New Jersey. Our mission is to develop cutting-edge sustainable technologies and publications from idea to market. We recognize both the urgency of the global climate crisis and the great potential of engineered solutions. Our projects are as numerous and varied as the problems we aim to solve.
Why "Owlfly"?
Owlflies are insects in the family Ascalaphidae. Many have beautiful colored wings like butterflies, even though the two groups of insects are not closely related. Owlflies represent a new and offbeat path to brilliance - at once strange and wonderful - which is exactly what we strive for.
Company History
Early R&D Work: 2020 - 2021
Chris Alice "Alie" Kratzer founded Owlfly LLC in August 2020 as an opportunity to develop, produce, and market sustainable technologies and publications that demonstrate a high potential to fight back against biodiversity loss and the climate crisis.
Alie hired two fellow engineering graduates of RIT to help with design and experimentation: Olivier Montmayeur and Liv Breglia. The team worked hard to develop several new products and technologies in parallel, with the intent to produce and market whatever worked best. The team made significant progress on several projects, including a portable wind turbine and cardboard boxes made from pond algae. We also invented and a new type of safe and effective thermal insulation inspired by wasp nest architecture that the team named "YellowJacket™". Believe it or not, our first working prototypes were constructed out of cereal boxes!
A prototype wind turbine developed by Owlfly LLC in 2021. The design was inspired by the way crinoids swim through water.
Publishing and YellowJacket™: 2022 - 2024
Owlfly LLC split into two divisions: Owlfly Engineering and Owlfly Publishing. Owlfly Publishing launched a field guide about wasps called The Social Wasps of North America to critical acclaim. The publishing division broke even within 3 months of its first publication. Automation engineer Zoey Katz joined Owlfly Engineering to improve our insulation manufacturing capability with custom robotics.
In 2023, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Owlfly LLC an SBIR Phase I grant to aid in the research and development of YellowJacket™ insulation. Mabel Fox joined the team as a laboratory technician.
In 2024, we refined YellowJacket™ through the development of a new self-extinguishing composite material called "ChipAL". The thermal resistivity of our most recent ChipAL-based YellowJacket™ prototypes are verified by an independent ASTM laboratory at 4.8 R/in, which is far better than all fiberglass and mineral wool on the market. Alie also published her second book, The Cicadas of North America.
Alie with her second book, The Cicadas of North America.
Mabel holds up one of our most recent YellowJacket™ prototypes.
And we're just getting started!