Irish-led start-up with tech to break down plastics secures near $100m deal

An Irish-led business that has technology that can break down plastic packaging waste such as takeaway containers, disposable cups and nappies, has secured a near $100 million (€85.3 million) agreement with a Taiwanese company.

Irish man Niall Dunne, the chief executive of Polymateria, a London-headquartered start-up, said the partnership with Taiwan's Formosa Plastics is one of a number of multimillion-dollar deals the company expects to conclude with big petrochemical manufacturers in the coming months and year.

Founded in 2015, and based at Imperial College, London, Polymateria has developed what it calls a “biotransformation technology” that can cause plastics to decompose into a wax-like substance that gets digested naturally by microbes. Unlike other processes, products developed with Polymateria’s solution leave no microplastics.

The company is primarily focused on so-called “fugitive plastic” comprised of waste materials, such as carrier bags and bubble wrap, that often don’t get recycled or disposed of in landfill. This accounts for almost a third of all plastic produced, and as much as 80 per cent of it ends up in oceans.

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It is estimated that some 2.1 billion tonnes of fugitive plastic will be in circulation by 2050, with Mr Dunne saying action is needed to ensure that as much of this as possible can be made fully biodegradable in the natural environment.

The company’s deal with Formosa Plastics, the world’s fifth largest chemical company by sales, sees its additive being added to products during the manufacturing process.

Decompose

Mr Dunne said plastics treated with Polymateria’s additives can decompose in as little as 226 days for polyethylene-based products, and 336 days for polypropylene ones.

Having raised £15 million (€17.5 million) at a valuation of £110 million last year, Polymateria is now targeting a £20 million Series B round, which would value the company at £200 million.

“We’re looking to focus on just two or three big industry players to come in and help us set up for success and deliver the type of volumes at the scale required. I expect potential investors will be mostly industry, with the possibility of one or two funds also coming in alongside them,” the Dubliner said.

Mr Dunne, who hails from Glenageary, says he has no doubt Polymateria will become a clean tech "unicorn", a status awarded to privately-owned companies valued at $1 billion or more.

“We’re already thinking about Series C and D and are very close to players like the investment banking group Jefferies. We have great support and the fact is the world really needs to see businesses like ours that are coming through and solving problems but also being commercially successful,” he said.

Earlier this year, Polymateria was named as a World Economic Forum tech pioneer for 2021 on account of the company’s contribution to tackling plastic pollution. Mr Dunne says he wants Polymateria to be “the Tesla of the plastics sector”.

Innovation

“The whole space is ripe for innovation because the plastic industry has not really been pushed to change to the extent that maybe energy or transportation has,” he said.

“In all honesty, it is probably only since 2017 when David Attenborough really focused attention on the impact of plastics in our oceans that producers have been pushed to do anything concrete about it.

“The response has largely been to go after low hanging fruit, such as recycling, where they turn it into another material. But we’re set up to address the bigger problem, which is when the plastics go beyond their world and out into our environment, where it is much harder to address,” Mr Dunne said.