In moving towards a cellulose-based society, interdisciplinary effort is required as it is at this interface that new ideas are found and can grow. New bio-based materials will play a key role but getting them into the marketplace is not always straightforward. Many options are available both for sourcing and for producing composite materials from wood-based cellulose and poly-lactic acid (PLA). Depending on how the material is processed, a multitude of properties can be generated. The main goal with this work was to attempt to reduce the research-To-market gap. This was done by testing a new way of working together where we bundled innovation-oriented projects and research-oriented projects around the theme of material experience. We then systematically worked with material demonstrators. In this article, we exemplify the results by focusing on one research-oriented project that did not at the outset have a market context and on one innovation-oriented project with clear market requirements. In addition to introducing a new concept in bundling research-oriented and innovation-oriented projects, this paper contributes several practical examples of what material demonstrators can do. We also present an application and analysis of Moultrie’s extended Science-Technology-Application-Market (STAM) model to analyze the material demonstrators and design phases of the bundled projects. We modified the proposed classification with different types of material demonstrators according to how close they are to an actual product segment. Designers and scientists worked together but with different emphasis in each phase.