TAGS: Sustainability / Natural Coatings
traceless, a bioeconomy startup, which produces a natural biomaterial as an alternative to plastic, announces the completion of a €36.6 million funding round. The Series A funding round is led by private equity fund, UB Forest Industry Green Growth Fund (UB FIGG), which invests in sustainable and resource-efficient forest and bio-based industries.
It is complemented by SWEN CP’s Blue Ocean fund, which invests in innovations that help address the three existential threats to ocean health - overfishing, pollution and climate change. A local banking syndicate consisting of GLS Bank, Hamburg and Hamburger Sparkasse also participated in the financing round as well as the company's three existing investors, green-tech investor Planet A Ventures, seed investor High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and deep tech investor b.value.
Holistic Sustainable Material to Tackle Plastic Crisis
Plastics not only leave behind the visible traces of global plastic pollution, but also contribute significantly to the climate crisis through their resource-intensive production from fossil raw materials. As part of a sustainable circular economy, the bioeconomy offers a solution - traceless materials has developed a holistically sustainable material to tackle the plastic crisis.
The natural biomaterial traceless® is certified completely bio-based, home-compostable and plastic-free. By using agricultural residues, valuable biomass resources are conserved. The patent-pending technology is based on natural polymers, contains no potentially harmful chemicals and has a minimal ecological footprint, compared to plastic, 91% of CO
2 emissions and 89% of fossil energy requirements are saved during production and disposal.
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Through scaling our innovative technology, we prove that a climate-friendly, circular, resilient and regenerative industry is possible. With our novel biomaterial, we can make a significant contribution to solving plastic pollution,” said Anne Lamp, co-founder & chief executive officer, traceless.
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We are convinced that UB FIGG and SWEN’s Blue Ocean fund are a great addition to our shareholders as they have relevant knowledge in our industry. The fact that both our investors and the banks fully support our mission was a decisive criterion for us," added Lamp.
In order to implement the innovative technology on an industrial scale for the first time, traceless is building a demonstration plant in Hamburg. With this production plant, the company will replace several thousand tons of conventional plastic annually and at the same time save a significant amount of CO
2 emissions, fossil resources, water and agricultural land.
Strategy to Replace Fossil-based Plastics
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traceless’ approach to use widely available agricultural side streams to replace fossil-based plastic and the financial opportunity their solution proposes convinced us both economically and ecologically,” said Sakari Saarela, partner at UB FIGG.
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The traceless team has achieved extremely strong results in terms of material performance, development times and commercialization of the new material. We are looking forward to accompanying Anne, Johanna and the team in the scale up of this innovative technology," added Saarela.
The Series A financing round is now the second part of the company's financing strategy to expand its production capacities. The Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection is funding this project with an amount of EUR 5,128,401 from the Environmental Innovation Program.
Global Plastic Pollution Resolving Goals
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We are very pleased that with UB FIGG, SWEN CP, Planet A, HTGF, b.value our local bank consortium we have found partners who share our vision and have recognized and understood the challenges of financing our hardware scale-up. With their support, we are going to reach our ambitious goals to make our contribution to solve global plastic pollution,” said Johanna Baare, co-founder & chief operating officer.
The company produces traceless® materials in the form of a granulate that can be further processed using standard technologies in the plastics and packaging industry. Thus, the material can be used in a wide range of end products - from rigid molded parts and flexible films to paper coatings or adhesives.
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The Blue Ocean fund seeks to invest in startups bringing innovative solutions to address the 3 main threats to our ocean - overfishing, ocean pollution and climate change. As plastic pollution is one of the main pollutants threatening our ocean, we were seduced by traceless, a bio-based and biodegradable material that can replace plastics in products that easily end up in the environment,” said Olivier Raybaud, managing director of SWEN Capital Partners.
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And hence in our ocean, such as single-use packaging as well as hidden plastics in adhesives and paper coatings. traceless is a compelling alternative to applications where reusable solutions are not sustainable and technical recycling is not feasible,” added Raybaud.
Source: TRACELESS MATERIALS