When Rick Shang moved to St. Louis in 2014 to pursue his Ph.D. in Philosophy, Neuroscience and Psychology (PNP) at Washington University in St. Louis, he never imagined he’d one day help to found a company in his new city. Today, that’s exactly what’s happened — and that company, Vulpes Corp., has the potential to upend the U.S. chemical manufacturing industry.
Shang is the CEO of Vulpes Corp., which he cofounded with his father, Dihu Yu, and their partner, Greg Shapiro, in 2018. The St. Louis-based company manufactures a range of products for the pharmaceutical, industrial, agricultural and energy industries. Shang is helping to bring these industries, previously dominated by international suppliers, to the U.S., creating jobs for domestic manufacturing workers.
You came to St. Louis to study PNP, but ended up in the chemical engineering industry. How did that happen?
My dad is from the first generation of chemical engineers trained professionally to help large corporations migrate from Europe and the United States to China. In the early 2000s, our family left everything behind and emigrated from China to the U.S. It had always been a dream of his to start a business like this — even though he was a prominent chemical engineer in China, he had nothing when he moved to the U.S. He understood how to run a factory, how to build everything and how to do research, but as an older immigrant, he was not well-versed in putting together a team and managing business relationships. I decided to come on board and help him.
How did the St. Louis startup community play a role in your success?
We’ve had a lot of support from places like BioSTL and other organizations in the St. Louis startup scene, but it goes back even further. When I was in the doctoral program for PNP at Washington University, there was an understanding on the part of the university that it can be very hard for humanities Ph.D.s to find jobs. The graduate school for humanities and Washington University’s Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship collaborated to help the humanities Ph.D.s get work as interns at local startups. Skandalaris was very generous in providing the funding to pay interns, so there was no cost to local startups. This is how my father and I met Greg Shapiro, who cofounded Vulpes Corp. with us. There was this real recognition that, although we were trained in philosophy, our skills are transferable and can be useful in other industries.
Why is Vulpes Corp. such a disruptor in the chemical manufacturing industry?
There are a few things to know about chemical manufacturing that are important. The first issue is a so-called “missing middle.” For example, the U.S. is one of the biggest oil and gas producers in the world, and we have the biggest consumer market in the world. Therefore, you would assume that a lot of the products made out of petrochemicals, such as plastics, should be made in the U.S. as well. But the reality is, most of the immediate or speciality petrochemicals are made in China and India. China is not a big oil producer, so they have to import massive amounts of oil to make specialty chemicals and then ship them back to the U.S. market.
There are all kinds of supply chain risks with this. We’ve been through a global (health crisis) and understand how unreliable it is to rely on something 5,000 or 7,000 miles away. My dad wondered if we have the raw materials and the end users, can we do something about this middle. It turns out, we can. We founded Vulpes in 2018, and, with the support of the greater St. Louis innovation ecosystem, we started to do research to show that it is possible to not only make chemicals in the U.S., but at a level that is globally competitive, which means competitive in both price and quality.
How has Vulpes Corp. been received by your clients?
Our clients are very grateful. Initially, they approach us solely because they need a U.S.-based supply chain. Once they start working with us, they realize we can not only match, but undercut, (international) supplier’s prices. Not only is it a better price, it saves them so many headaches. This is what we are doing: building a platform that integrates products and material innovation with local manufacturing.
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