With Prosperity Fund Help, Startup CHONEX Aims to Turn Waste Into Profit

Southern Research’s Prosperity Fund is assisting an Alabama startup that sees one of nature’s great recyclers – the black soldier fly – as an instrument to convert chicken poop into high-value products such as protein-rich animal feed and organic fertilizer.

CHONEX, the brainchild of entrepreneur Michael Lynch and fifth-generation farmer Harley Martin, got its start about 18 months ago, and Southern Research has been involved in the firm’s development almost from the beginning.