• Xampla

  Participated · Equity · Jan 2024

  Xampla develops Morro materials — natural polymers made from regenerative plant proteins that are fully plastic-free, biodegradable and home-compostable. Morro Coating preserves cardboard recyclability while providing grease, oxygen and moisture barriers, and Morro films are soluble, food-safe and are being commercialised globally as replacements for PVA films in dishwasher tablets and laundry pods. The company has commercial partnerships with packaging firms including 2M Group of Companies, Huhtamaki and Transcend Packaging and has replaced plastic coatings for customers such as Just Eat Takeaway and Bunzl Catering Supplies. With a $14 million Series A, Xampla plans to expand into Asia Pacific while growing its UK and European operations. The funding will support scaling of production and commercialization to target replacing over ten billion pieces of the most harmful single-use plastics within five years. Investors in the round include Emerald Technology Ventures, BGF, Matterwave Ventures and follow-on support from existing backers Amadeus Capital Partners and Horizons Ventures. Xampla develops Morro, a range of fully biodegradable, home‑compostable and food‑safe plant‑based materials with high strength and grease and oxygen barrier properties. The technology is backed by 15 years of University of Cambridge research and is already used by brands such as Britvic, ELEMIS and Gousto. Xampla supplies Morro products including edible and soluble films and a Morro Nutri product for fortifying and stabilising vitamins and nutrients in food and drink. The company plans to expand the consumer Morro brand into new markets and to advance production of its biodegradable materials to support big brands in moving away from single‑use plastic. In collaboration with partners, Xampla will work to optimise operational efficiency and drive down the cost of sustainable materials while maintaining quality standards. The company is led by CEO Alexandra French. Xampla is a University of Cambridge spin-out that after 15 years of research has developed what it calls the world’s first plant protein material for commercial use. Its Supramolecular Engineered Protein uses pea protein to form microscopic capsules that protect vitamins in liquid products from sunlight, enabling vitamin-fortified drinks in clear bottles. The material is described as performing like synthetic polymers while decomposing naturally and fully, and Xampla is the first UK university spin-out to be awarded B Corp status. The company has secured a £1m grant from Innovate UK to scale up its technology and material processing and has entered a separate £1m packaging innovation partnership with Britvic to pilot beverage applications. Xampla previously launched an edible film with meal-kit maker Gousto in a trial that sold out within an hour, showing early commercial traction. The company positions itself as a partner to help businesses solve packaging and nutrient-delivery challenges while supporting sustainability goals. Xampla produces plant-protein-based materials intended to replace microplastics and single-use plastics. The company is commercialising next-generation plastic replacements and plans to accelerate roll-out of its alternatives. Financially, Xampla has just closed a €6.8 million seed finance round to support growth, following a €2.2 million round announced in April last year. The business is a University of Cambridge spin-out and emphasizes commercial traction and scalability to address plastic pollution. Xampla is the first UK university spin-out to achieve B Corp accreditation, and the team highlights strong technical and commercial progress. The company is chaired by Jeff Seabright and is backed by investors focused on deeptech and impact. Xampla is a Cambridge-born deep tech startup that has developed a plant protein-based material intended as an alternative to synthetic polymer microcapsules used in home and personal care products. The company says its protein material decomposes more quickly and completely than existing polysaccharide-based alternatives and that its fabrication process mimics natural processes. Xampla holds two patents for the material and has a third patent in development. The startup is targeting the roughly $12 billion global microencapsulation market initially, with plans to turn its prototype material into products such as films, gels and capsules and eventually move beyond the microcapsule market. The company positions its mission around reducing the impact of single-use plastic and helping manufacturers transition to high-performance, natural alternatives.

• DePoly

  Participated · Seed · Jun 2023

  DePoly develops a chemical recycling process that breaks PET and polyester plastics down to their original monomers without using fossil fuels. The company raised a $23M Seed round to fund a 500-tonne-per-year showcase plant in Monthey, Switzerland, scheduled to open in summer 2025. The showcase plant is intended to demonstrate the technology at industrial scale and validate DePoly’s roadmap toward a circular plastics market. Investors in the round include a strategic investment from MassMutual Ventures alongside BASF Venture Capital, Beiersdorf Venture Capital, and Zürcher Kantonalbank. DePoly has collaborations with Odlo, PTI, and Beiersdorf across fashion, consumer goods, and cosmetics. Management highlights in the articles include Co-Founder and CEO Samantha Anderson and CFO David Hanf, who joined in 2024, and the company plans to refine its technology and pursue a commercial-scale plant to process larger volumes and compete with virgin pricing at scale. DePoly uses a chemical recycling process to convert PET plastics and polyester textiles back into their original monomers (PTA and MEG). Its room-temperature, standard-pressure process requires no washing, pre-sorting, or melting and can handle contaminated, mixed-color, and textile waste streams that mechanical recycling cannot. The company currently operates a pilot plant that processes 50 tons per year and serves industries including post-consumer packaging, textiles, fashion, and post-industrial streams; it reports five customers. DePoly is building a 500-ton showcase plant to demonstrate commercial scale and is scaling its technology to recover other materials such as PP, cotton, polyurethanes (PU), polylactic acid (PLA), and PBT. Founded in 2020 by Samantha Anderson, Bardiya Valizadeh and Christopher Ireland, the company has a team of 13 people. It sells recovered raw chemical components back to manufacturers, positioning its output as virgin quality to enable a circular economy for plastics. DePoly is an EPFL spin-off chemical-technology startup that converts low-value PET waste into high-value chemical monomers like TPA to enable a circular economy. It has developed a depolymerization process that returns PET to its two main chemical components identical in quality to oil-derived raw materials. The process operates at room temperature without applied pressure and uniquely tolerates mixed plastics (PET with PVC, PP, PS, etc.), mixed colors, dirty PET, and fabrics/fibers. DePoly sells the recovered monomers back to industry as feedstock for PET production. With the CHF1.3M pre-seed financing, the company will develop an enhanced recycling pre-demo plant to depolymerize PET into the raw materials required for PET production. DePoly has also been supported by Venture Kick and TOP 100. DePoly has developed a chemical recycling process that selectively treats PET in mixed plastic waste to produce chemical intermediates usable to make 100% recycled PET resins. The process works at room temperature without added heat or pressure, handles mixed colour, multi‑layer and polyester fibre PET, and uses sustainable, environmentally friendly chemicals. DePoly says every ton recycled saves energy equivalent to four European households’ annual electricity use, 18 barrels of oil, or ten London–New York passenger flights. The company collaborates with EPFL Valais‑Wallis and was founded in February 2020 by Samantha Anderson, Christopher Ireland and Bardiya Valizadeh. It has received support from VentureKick, Climate‑KIC, EPFL, Venture and CleanTechAlps and is currently conducting a seed fundraising round to build a larger demo plant. The recently awarded FIT Tech Seed loan will fund a 10 kg pilot plant footprint and help cover staff salaries to operate the unit. With those plants, DePoly targets PET resin producers, plastic recyclers and chemical industry customers.

• UniSieve

  Participated · Seed · Apr 2023

  UniSieve develops modular, high-precision membranes that integrate porous zeolitic materials into polymeric membranes to filter specific molecules and ions without using thermal energy. The company sells containerized separation systems and membrane replacement services that can be integrated into existing industrial processes. It is currently focused on CO2 capture and is piloting hydrocarbon separation applications, claiming up to 90% greater energy efficiency versus distillation or amine scrubbing. UniSieve says its manufacturing is scalable and its membranes can be tuned to separate chemicals that differ by fractions of an angstrom. The Zurich-based startup was founded in 2018 by ETH Zürich classmates Samuel Hess and Elia Schneider and is already generating revenue with more than 24 clients, including chemical and energy companies. The company plans to use pilots and expanded operational capacity to scale deployments across heavy industries. UniSieve, founded in 2018 and based in Zurich, develops a proprietary membrane solution for high-efficiency separation in the chemical and energy industries. Its technology can facilitate saving up to 90% of the energy required to purify the world’s most frequent chemical feedstocks, enabling greenhouse gas reductions, recovery of valuable chemicals, and lower operational costs. The company positions its membranes as an enabling technology to increase the sustainability and economic attractiveness of the renewable chemicals market. UniSieve works with customers to challenge state-of-the-art separation technologies and reduce waste. The recent raise of around €3.9 million will be used to establish pilot production and co-finance industrial testing at customers’ chemical sites. The investment is expected to sustain the startup until the closure of sales agreements for full-scale separation units. UniSieve, an ETH spin-off based in Zürich, has developed a patent‑pending membrane technology that enables scalable production of mechanically stable, flexible MOF (metal‑organic framework) membranes. The membranes are designed for integration into standard membrane modules and for separation of various gases and liquids, targeting significant reductions in energy use for industrial separations. The company positions its technology as a way to optimize trennverfahren (separation processes) that account for more than 10% of global energy consumption. UniSieve says its approach enables cost‑ and energy‑efficient separations across industrial applications. Participation in Venture Kick accelerated the development of UniSieve’s business case, helped the team set productive milestones, and structured company planning. Samuel Hess is a co‑founder and CEO of the company.

No current team members are available.