On Tuesday, Menlo Park, California’s Novoloop, an early mover in the development of patented methods to upcycle post-consumer plastic waste into industrial inputs, announced that it has raised $11 million in Series A financing. The round was led by South Korean impact investment firm Envisioning Partners, with participation from Valo Ventures and industrial bonding manufacturer Bemis Associates. Prior investors SOSV, Mistletoe, and TIME Ventures also re-upped their commitments in the round.
Novoloop is pioneering the chemical transformation of plastic waste into high-performance chemicals and materials. The company’s proprietary process technology, ATOD™ (Accelerated Thermal Oxidative Decomposition), breaks down polyethylene into chemical building blocks that can be synthesized into high-value products. Polyethylene is the most widely used plastic today, yet, according to Novoloop, only 9 percent is recycled and virtually none is upcycled.
The first product based on Novoloop’s ATOD process is Oistre™, a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) for use in high-performance applications such as footwear, apparel, sporting goods, automotive, and electronics. Oistre is the first TPU made from post-consumer polyethylene waste that matches the performance characteristics of virgin TPUs made from petrochemicals. Additionally, Novoloop says, Oistre’s carbon footprint is up to 46 percent smaller than conventional TPUs.
“What really compelled us to lead the investment round is that Novoloop has found product-market fit,” said June Cha, Partner at Envisioning Partners. “Novoloop has proven that Oistre has a wide range of applications in the market even at their early stage.”
Novoloop’s technology can upcycle carbon content found in common plastic waste like grocery bags, packaging, and agricultural plastics that is too low value for material recovery facilities to bale and sell. Instead, the plastics go into landfills or incinerators today. Novoloop’s ATOD technology aims to increase commercial demand for waste polyethylene.
“Plastics are not going away anytime soon, so we need to innovate to close the gap between what is produced and what is repurposed. After years of technology development, we’re thrilled to announce backing by high-caliber investors and partners to commercialize this much-needed technology,” said Novoloop Co-founder and CEO Miranda Wang.
“With this funding, we look forward to completing crucial pilot scale-ups and commercializing our process technology to make a lasting impact. Our team is excited to lead the circular economy revolution for plastics,” said Novoloop Co-founder and COO Jeanny Yao.
Novoloop is also announcing the company’s new partnership with Bemis Associates, the leader in apparel bonding solutions such as seam tapes, which can be found in high performance outerwear. Together, the companies will introduce Oistre into the Bemis product portfolio as a first step to replace virgin petroleum-based thermoplastic polyurethane.
“We are extremely excited to partner with Novoloop,” said Bemis Director of Sustainability Ben Howard. “Novoloop’s technology is a major breakthrough for our supply chain. Scaling it will be a huge step in shifting away from virgin petroleum sources and reducing our products’ carbon footprints.”
Novoloop is currently sampling and taking pre-orders for Oistre 65A, a soft grade polyester TPU for injection molding especially suitable for footwear applications.
