MadeRight raises $2M for fungi-based green packaging
MadeRight will use the new funding to further its aim to introduce a commercially viable product prototype over the coming year, and to refine the production process.
Biotech startup MadeRight raised $2M in seed funding to develop its process of cultivating fungi for green packaging, Sharon Wrobel reports for The Times of Israel.
Nurtured at OurCrowd’s Fresh Start incubator, MadeRight harnesses the way fungi function as natural recyclers to replace harmful materials in plastic packaging, reducing their environmental impact.
“We harness the potential of fungi to fashion materials from renewable sources, fostering an economic circularity that will steer the future’s material revolution.”
“Fungi serve as nature’s recyclers, thriving on what we consider waste,” says CEO Rotem Cahanovitc, a mycology expert who co-founded the company in 2022 with Yotam David, a molecular geneticist.
“We harness the potential of fungi to fashion materials from renewable sources, fostering an economic circularity that will steer the future’s material revolution.”
The company's fermentation technology cultivates fungi grown on organic industrial waste such as wood chips to produce sustainable materials that are biodegradable and free from pollutants, to create a recyclable plastic alternative for packaging. The compounds are mixed with bio-plastics to create pellets that can be used in the packaging industry.
Cahanovitc came up with the idea for the technology after a volunteer stint in Ethiopia, where families burn plastic waste.
“The concept of waste is a human construct, absent in the natural order, where Earth’s recyclers are fungi,” Cahanovitc says. “This realization spurred my contemplation of revolutionizing plastic production, aiming for plastics that could be effortlessly recycled or even composted.”
According to the OECD, the amount of plastic waste has doubled over the past two decades, leaking into water, soil and air. This amount is expected to almost triple by 2060, with less than 20% recycled.
Global recycling rates are relatively low, inhibited in large part by plastic additives that are mixed into packaging to prolong the shelf life of products. MadeRight aims to replace those additives with sustainable fungi-based materials.
The global food packaging market, now valued at $363 million, is projected to grow to $512 billion by 2028, according to a report by Statista.
MadeRight will use the new funding to further its aim to introduce a commercially viable product prototype over the coming year, and to refine the production process.