Hamburg-based startup Traceless Materials secured €2.42M grant and equity investment from the European Innovation Council (EIC). This comes as the subject startup developed a biological sustainable alternative material for plastic, however, the latest funding is believed to enable the startup to deliver its novel naturally compostable biomaterial to market.
The novel naturally compostable biomaterial is viewed as one that will substitute plastic and bioplastic in products that often end up in the environment, and, as such, solve the global plastic pollution. According to Europe’s statistics, only 32.5% of consumer plastic is collected to be recycled, 43% of plastic waste in the region is incinerated while on the other hand, 25% is being landfilled. Leaving the environment with a larger proportion of plastic waste, which eventually results in extensive pollution of the land and oceans. Hence, the ugly side effect of plastic on the environment has resulted in the urgent need for alternatives. Therefore, it is believed Novel material solutions that practically avoid plastic and microplastic from ending up in the environment are needed.
Going forward, it’s believed the impact of Novel material solutions on other issues of urgent concern, such as climate change, the land-use change, the global food problem, which in addition to other factors, the environmentally sound management of hazardous chemicals should be noted as a factor that should be taken into account.
The subject alternative known as traceless materials was actually developed while taking into account all impact indicators: Typically, the patent-pending technology that was invented by CEO and co-founder ‘Dr. Anne Lamp’ practically allows the use of agricultural residues from food production to be used to produce materials that are home compostable. Hence, efforts are made to ensure that the bio-based traceless materials which do not result in land-use change, exclude hazardous additives or solvents and have up to 87% lower CO2 emissions than conventional plastics. This is rather proof why the female-founded startup – traceless materials secured €2.42M from the EIC.
Looking at this from an economic point of view, on an industrial production scale, traceless materials that are already competitive in quality with traditional plastic are believed to be price competitive to virgin plastic in the EU, while solving the problems of all people in all demographics and income levels. The subject product is applicable to a wide variety of products that can easily end up in the environment, notably rigid and flexible packaging that also includes disposables and products with high abrasion that include coating and adhesive solutions. More significantly, is the fact that this product is fully home-compostable under natural composting conditions viewed as first-of-a-kind material which sees the company’s contribution to solving global plastic pollution.
It’s understood a successful seed investment enabled the company to build its first pilot production plant for the actualization of first market pilots. While the latest funds from EIC will be used to double down its scale-up through the building of a demonstration production plant precisely for a first market entry for traceless materials.
It’s also worth noting that the EIC Accelerator backs individual Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to develop and scale up game-changing innovations, which is considered the most competitive public funding scheme for deep-tech startups currently. While out of 4,000 companies that sent in their ideas this year, only 65 scaled through as winners. However, the CEO of traceless materials ‘Dr. Anne Lamp’ stated:
“Receiving the EIC Accelerator support is a clear recognition of the innovative nature and high potential of traceless’ technology and the amazing work our team has done over the past year. The funding enables us to speed up our development even more and bring traceless to market fast – so that we can make our contribution to solving global plastic pollution!”
The company which was founded in 2020 plans to deliver its materials to the market as quickly as possible. While its continuously growing team is understood to be developing several prototypes, among others is an e-commerce shipping bag with OTTO.
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