The start-up traceless materials recently won the 25,000 euro Green Alley Award for its development of a holistically sustainable material that could be used as an alternative for plastics and bioplastics: The innovative material is fully compostable – even when it unintentionally ends up in nature – and thus contributes to solving global plastic pollution. The two founders, Dr. Anne Lamp and Johanna Baare, have now been able to convince three investors in their first round of financing: Planet A, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and b.value AG. This means that traceless materials has secured a single-digit million investment just seven months after its founding.
The founders want to use the investment to build up and expand the core team and to push ahead with the construction of a pilot plant. The aim is to scale up production from the laboratory scale in order to be able to produce sufficient material, as the first pilot products are to be launched on the market at the beginning of 2022. Companies from the consumer goods industry as well as packaging and plastics processing companies are already showing great interest in the novel materials. The pressure from legislators, the increasing demand from customers and the urgency to stop the negative impact of plastic on the environment create a unique situation for traceless to change the plastics market in a sustainable way.
“Based on Planet A’s scientific impact assessment, we are confident that traceless’ unique solution has the potential to make a significant contribution to solving global plastic pollution and to change the plastic market in a sustainable way,” Tobias Seikel, co-founder and partner at Planet A, says confidently.
Dr Anne Lamp, inventor of the traceless technology, and Johanna Baare co-founded traceless in September 2020 and are advised by Startup Dock from the beyourpilot network. The women are particularly proud of the support from experienced venture capital investors: “They understand our deep tech solution, share our mission and want to maximise our positive impact together with us,” Anne reports. The founders are confident that their diverse experience will help them along the way and together they can quickly and safely scale their technology to industrial production levels.
B.value wants to support the start-up with its technical and operational expertise to drive the development of the company and its products. The close contacts between b.value and the German biotech industry can open new doors for the team. For example, their network and portfolio companies include some innovative German deep-tech start-ups as well as experienced bioeconomy experts.
High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) also brings together several companies in the basic and speciality chemicals sector that deal with polymers and thermoplastic composites that have invested in its funds. In addition to industry contacts and expertise, the consortium would be able to make substantial follow-on investments in later rounds. “In the area of sustainable plastics alternatives, we see a lot of interest from the plastics processing industry as well as from companies in the consumer goods sector. In our view, traceless has the potential to become a technology and market leader in new materials for packaging, for example,” explains Johannes Weber, investment manager at HTGF.
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